Online News Act could see Google, Meta pay combined $234 million to Canadian media
Online News Act could see Google, Meta pay combined $234 million to Canadian media
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This is how Canadian news sites will die. The only reason Canadian sites are accessible to most is because of search engines. The major search engines and social media platforms could easily remove Canadian sites will little loss. Facebook has already done it and has received little decrease in usage.
Canadian news needs search engines more than the search engines need Canadian news.
The problem is not search engines per se, but how those engines work. When the search engine pulls so much more than just a link, there is no need to actually go to the site. That means the only party making ad revenue is the search engine.
Then you have platforms like Twitter and Facebook that have a "pay to promote" system. AYour feeds are not just what you've decided to follow sorted by how you prioritize things, but sorted by who has paid the most, including content that you never actually subscribed to. That means if the CBC, or anyone, wants to actually be seen by their followers, they have to both pay and provide enough content that makes visiting the site less necessary. So on top of reduced opportunity for ad revenue or to gain an actual subscription, they have to pay to get that reduced opportunity.
Yes, I know that the sites have some control over how much beyond a link they allow to be pulled, but the nature of human attention means that being too restrictive is basically equivalent to not existing.
To be clear, I don't have a solution. The current legislation is not the answer, but something needs to be done. I'm starting to think that news and journalism needs to be supported the way we used to support the arts. Government funding with very, very few strings attached. But I can see lots of problems with that, too.
When the search engine pulls so much more than just a link, there is no need to actually go to the site. ... I don’t have a solution.
Luckily you don't need one. Facebook came up with the solution a long time ago – one that all the major media sites adopted. It's called OpenGraph. It lets the publishers decide exactly how they want to present their content on these sites. Give too much information and the users won't click? Change what information you specify. It all happens on the publisher's side, so they are in full control.
OpenGraph is definitely a great idea. That still leaves the problem of paid content getting pushed to the top.