"Meta's practices are clearly designed to discipline Canadian news companies, prevent them from participating in and accessing the advertising market, and significantly reduce their visibility to Canadians on social media channels," the CBC said in a joint statement with the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and News Media Canada, a trade organization that represents newspapers.
Isn't the argument for C-18 that the advertising market isn't doing the news organizations much good anyway?
And as far as their visibility on social media channels, the news organization created this problem for themselves in the first place by encouraging people to share their work on social media; if they'd focused on making sure people know where to find them instead of posting all their work maybe their sites would be getting more traffic. They tried a business strategy, it didn't work out, and now instead of coming up with a better strategy they're trying to force Meta and Google to give them money and make the bad strategy work.
Canadians expect tech giants to follow the law in our country.
The law says Meta and Google have to pay to carry news; it doesn't say they have to carry news. Maybe the law should have been written without that gaping hole?
This seems relevant: My Distaste For Your Solution Does Not Mean Disregard For The Problem
Anyway, I don't think this law would reduce Meta's power if the company cooperated, because if Meta only falls under the law if it has power then news organizations have an incentive to make sure it keeps enough power to keep the law applicable and keep getting them paid.