Allowing The Big Tech Firms Like Facebook To Regulate Themselves Is Simply Not Working, Says Canadian Heritage Minister
According to the latest reports, Canadian Heritage Minister, Steven Guilbeault has stated that the governments around the world have tried and given the Big Tech firms like Facebook the chance to regulate themselves for things like hate speech and extremism.
In an interview with The West Block’s Mercedes Stephenson, he said that the firms have proven that they wither cannot or will not do so. He further said that these firms are incapable of doing so. When being questioned that what the government is doing to try to get the social media and the technology firms to take up responsibility for the content shared and posted on their respective platforms, he said that even trying to make that work, it just did not happen.
As an added response he said that along with his other colleagues, they are working on a plan and shall be putting forward legislation shortly.
The goal suggested by him is to find a way to mirror the protections in place in the physical world to those that should be available to the people online.
For example in Canada, the courts have consistently ruled that while freedom of expression is certainly a constitutional right but certain reasonable limits can be imposed on that right, like prohibiting threats, hate speech, and incitement to violence, etc.
Guilbeault said that although they have freedom of speech in their society but that doesn’t necessarily give people the right to just say anything. No one can choose to be verbally abusive to someone. He further added that as people are now doing it in the real world, this gives them the liberty to do it in the virtual world as well.
It was only last week, when Facebook Australia had reportedly threatened to cut off individuals and journalism outlets from sharing news content on the platform in response to a plan laid out by the government there to introduce a bill that would force it and other online giants to share the royalties with the media organizations whose content they post.
The company has stated that the laid out plan implies that they either have to choose between removing the news entirely or have to accept a system that lets the publishers charge them for as much content as they want as a price with no clear limits.
Over the years, the publishers have repeatedly warned that the social media platforms and other Big Tech firms have been unfairly benefitting from the advertising dollars that they gain from the clicks and the eyeballs on the news content posted on their platforms, without sharing any of those benefits with the content creators.
This particular warning has cropped up amid a decade where there have been innumerable media outlets, mainly the local outlets, who have been forced to close as vital advertising revenues have dried up and the little remaining ones shift to the online platform.
Along with this, the threat to cut off real news is being followed by years when the Big Tech firms like Facebook have repeatedly allowed misinformation to circulate and have done little to shut it down, despite having received repeated urges from the policy makers to take control of the situation.
Guilbeault has said that he has planned to table a bill once the House of Commons returns this fall that will further force the web giants like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime and others to create Canadian content. This is a requirement that has already been placed on the domestic companies like broadcasters.
He said that it’s time to put some fairness into the Canadian regulatory system because at this moment, there is no fairness. There are Canadian companies that have regulatory obligations and also there are international web giants that have none of it, which is unsustainable. He further added that the government is right now speaking with Australia and also France to learn more about how those governments are trying to make the web giants compensate the news media for sharing their content. All of this seems immortal and unacceptable to him, and he desperately intends to change that, he said.
He went on to say that there are a couple of countries in the world like France and Australia that are moving in that direction. And, right now they are also looking closely and in fact, talking with them, looking into what models they’ve opted, and how they could implement the same in Canada as well.
As per the latest reports, the government is all set to present a Throne Speech on September 23.
I am Darryl Broadhurst and i give investors an insight into the most recent news hitting the “Technology” sector in Wall Street. I have been an independent financial adviser for over 11 years in the city and in recent years turned my experience in finance and passion for journalism into a full time role. I perform analysis of Companies and publicizes valuable information for shareholder community.
