this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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the government's argument in implementing the link tax was that facebook doesn't provide any value, they just take news for free and make a profit off it.
so facebook stopped linking to news. and now they're complaining because facebook isn't providing the valuable service that they used to. so does facebook provide value by linking to news, or not?
Some people are complaining, certainly not everyone.
And no, it's not a valuable service. Just go to CTV or CBC news websites and get all the wildfire news you need. People do not need to get their news from Facebook.
i mean, i mostly agree. i don't get my news from facebook, and most people i know who use facebook say it's a generally more pleasant experience without news on the site.
but when i say "now they're complaining" i don't just mean random people. the people that are complaining are Justin Trudeau and David Eby. If they want facebook to link to news sites, they shouldn't charge facebook money to do that. most websites pay facebook money to link to them.
For just about anything you can always find "people" that complain about it: I mean, Flat-Earthers complain of their views getting "unfair treatment".
That doesn't at all mean it's bad or even that such a view is anywhere representative of what even a significant minority of people thinks.
Somebody complaining about something is only a valid threshold for "newsworthy" for a "news" media which is clickbait prone or little more than the mouthpiece of a specific political side.
(Not Canadian, don't really have a side in there, just pointing out what I see as a general rule).
Same thing happened in Australia with similar legislation... the problem is, local county fire authorities who don't receive sufficient funding utilise social media to provide regular updates.... Meta (facebook at the time) shut off access for the day, and people went batshit. It definitely exposed a real flaw in that sparsely located, small county fire authorities don't have a good way to communicate to the people during bushfires.
The problem here is that they want to reach a wide audience... and the wide audience are more likely to be using something owned by Meta to seek information.
I hope someone stands up to the Meta mafia. Governments listen the fuck up and make it so your people aren't reliant on foreign entities to obtain vital information.
[EDIT] I'll also add that while the county fire authorities in Australia might have apps to communicate, these are run by the state governments, so the reach of the individual apps is pretty variable. People who live in bushfire prone areas will probably have an app and their radio going to listen out on alerts to leave, but visitors, new residents, people passing through etc are pretty unlikely to think to download the CFA app for the state.
In Canada fire authorities can still post, they just can't link to news articles.
'oh look, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions'
I feel for people, but this is exactly what the government legislated. We can't demand they pay a tax if they want to do business and then get mad when they decide to not do that business here.
Almost like the Canadian government is a clownshow from start to finish. Speaking as a Canadian.