“All
governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” —I.F. Stone
PROPONENTS of the Act, and here we are talking about the “Online Streaming Act”
(formally Bill C-11), say that only large streaming services, online hosting
platforms and podcasters with $10 million or more in Canadian revenues would be
subject to the new law. They would be required to “register” with the CRTC and
provide the regulator with information on the content they host, along with other information to help the commission "better understand”
the types of content the platforms host and produce. Okay.. I guess?
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| Gene Hackman. The Conversation 1974. |
"...modernizes the Broadcasting Act and helps ensure Canadian stories and music are widely available on streaming platforms to the benefit of future generations of artists and creators in Canada."
And, in its "Directions" to the CRTC about how the Act should be implemented the government mentions the need to ensure that "inclusivity" and "diversity" standards are maintained; to support Canadian digital creators, and to exclude small "social media creators." As well, the CRTC is to enforce the "discoverability and showcasing requirements" of digital companies that fall within the Act's purview. This last direction suggests the evolution of a registry system that raises some red flags.
CRITICS claim the Act's registry system is
the tip of the iceberg, and that monitoring and censoring digital providers big
and small is what's really in the works. A further concern is that the
CRTC is, in fact, “content focused”, something Heritage Minister Rodriguez,
whose remit includes modernizing the CRTC to meet the challenges of a digital
age, denies. He states the main purpose of the Act is to promote Canadian content online. He tells us the “Online Streaming Act” is not concerned with the content digital services provide, just that they comply with the rules and guidelines the Act lays out. But is this true? The Act will come with registration
requirements for large online undertakings, but there is the ill-defined regulations
component of the Act yet to be fleshed out. Will these future "regulations" tie up any loose ends the Act proper does not address? And to what end?
UPCOMING hearings in November and December should shed some light on the extent to which the Act’s new regulations
will monitor (and perhaps censor) online services, from Disney and Netflix to digital creators and
social media of all shapes and sizes. The hearings may reveal whether content moderation by
the CRTC is the real goal behind the “Online Streaming Act”. More
on this as the hearings in Ottawa unfold.*
Cheers, Jake.
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* NOTE: "Hearings" are
undertaken to iron-out any problems or shortcomings in a Bill as it proceeds into
law. There is public input, expert opinion, and “stakeholder” depositions given during parliamentary committee hearings. For example, hearings for Bill C-18 (the “Online News Act”), saw a submission from
the Canadian Broadcasters Association (CBA), which includes the CBC, Rogers, Bell,
etc., that proposed its Association members receive a bigger share of the pie when the government begins collecting fees from online service providers like Google and Facebook who use
Canadian-made news content on their platforms. The fees would be used to support struggling legacy news organizations in Canada. It's tens of millions of dollars collected annually from, primarily, Google and Facebook-- That's a fair chunk of change!
But, the CBA wants to 'jiggle' the
formula used to calculate how much moolah each legacy media company, large and small, receives. The Heritage Ministry doles (or will dole) out the cash it collects from the tech giants based,
in part, on how many “full-time journalists” each Canadian news provider employs. (The more journalists, the more cash it receives.) The CBA wants to
change the definition of a journalist to include support staff, technicians,
etc. Cheeky bastards! Of course, large legacy news organizations have more support staff than smaller ones. Changing the funding formula in this manner would benefit them considerably, and further weaken the competitiveness of smaller digital news providers and local broadcasters.
THE FAT CATS who dominate the digital and broadcast landscape in Canada probably won’t get
their way. Besides, the scheme of taxing foreign digital platforms that use Canadian news content may not make it off the starting blocks. Google and Facebook may balk at paying for CanCon news and vids, and decide not to host any on their platforms, leaving Canadians even more in the dark with respect to local and regional news. NOTE: Facebook has already begun to block uploads of Canadian-sourced news from its feeds and Google search algorithms are beginning to "shadow ban" Canadian news items. So don’t be greedy,
Minister Rodriguez!
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