The Federal Court has approved a consent order requiring Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault to unblock Rebel News publisher Ezra Levant on Twitter. The order stems from a 2021 lawsuit filed by Levant which argued that blocking “violated the Applicants’ constitutional rights under section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in blocking access to official governmental Twitter accounts, and thereby limiting the Applicants’ ability to, inter alia, access and communicate important information, participate in public debate, and express views on matters of public concern.” The order also includes a $20,000 cost award to Levant. Regardless of your views of either Levant or Guilbeault, the principle that government ministers should not block access to their feeds given the implications for freedom of expression is an important one.

The case dragged along for a couple of years and given the full agreement to stop blocking and pay costs, it appears that the government and Guilbeault recognized they were likely to lose. Instead, they agreed to a consent order in an effort to avoid establishing an adverse precedent. Yet even the consent order sends a signal to government ministers and others speaking on behalf of the government that limiting public access to Twitter or social media feeds may violate Canadians’ Charter rights to access government information. 

The issue of blocking users on social media has received considerable attention in the past, with the CCLA and Canadian media covering the issue. In 2018, a lawsuit was launched against then-Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson over blocking users on Twitter, but I don’t know what became of that case. In the U.S., the question is headed to the Supreme Court, which earlier this year agreed to hear a pair of cases involving politicians blocking users on Twitter and Facebook. 

While it is both understandable and reasonable for politicians to want to avoid harassment or other inappropriate behaviour online, social media services typically have a “mute” function that would allow them to do so without blocking public access to their feeds. Moreover, given the implications of Bill C-18 and blocked news links, government information may only be available directly from the original source on some services, thereby increasing the importance of unfettered access. Levant says that the government wanted him to sign a confidentiality clause in order to keep the settlement secret. He refused and has thereby opened the door to similar claims against ministers or others speaking on behalf of the government that block users since such an approach is clearly vulnerable to a legal challenge as a likely violation under the Charter.

 

The post Federal Court Approves Consent Order Requiring Minister Steven Guilbeault to Unblock Ezra Levant on Twitter appeared first on Michael Geist.

Regardless of where you live, major disasters can strike at any time, so it’s important to be prepared. Many Canadians don’t realize that Canada ranks second in the world in terms of frequency of tornadoes, with an average of 80 to 100 each year.

Tornado season typically runs from early March to late October, with the highest number of tornadoes occurring in June and early July. These violent storms bring winds that can result in significant property damage, injuries and even fatalities.

Hurricane season, affecting mostly the Atlantic Provinces in Canada, runs from June through November when the waters of the Atlantic Ocean are warm enough to produce tropical cyclones. Hurricanes often cause more widespread damage than tornadoes because of their breadth – some have been as large as 1,000 kilometres across.

Knowing what to do and how to prepare for these storms will help protect you, your family and your home.

How to Protect Your Home From Wind Damage

Maintenance of Trees and Shrubs

Regularly maintain the trees around your property by having them pruned and dead branches removed. This may help reduce the likelihood of them falling and damaging your vehicle or other belongings and prevent larger parts of the tree from falling during a storm. Have dead trees removed. Check with your municipal bylaws before taking action and we recommend consulting a professional as your safety is key.

Secure Outdoor Items

If safe to do so, before a windstorm hits, walk around your property and secure or store loose items such as patio furniture, barbeques, fire pits, children’s toys, gardening, maintenance or sports equipment, waste, recycling and compost bins. Loose items can be pushed around by strong winds and be damaged or cause damage to nearby property. Proactively address weak points or broken parts of your fence as loose boards can also cause damage during a windstorm.

Maintain the Exterior of your Property

Your home’s roof, garage doors, windows and sidings are at the greatest risk of damage from a windstorm. Ensuring that they are properly maintained and in good working condition can help to reduce the likelihood of damage and even limit or prevent damage to your home’s interior as well. Regular spot checks and warranty guidelines can assist you in ensuring they are well maintained and in good working condition.

Develop an Emergency Preparedness Plan

Mapping out and going over an emergency plan with your family and those in your household is a worthwhile exercise. The plan does not need to be extensive, but it should include information on what to do in an emergency, safe places to take refuge within and outside of the home, escape routes, emergency contact numbers, as well as the location and use of emergency supplies and equipment.

How to Protect Your Car From Wind Damage

Secure your vehicles

Take the opportunity to secure your vehicle(s) in your garage, secured carport or stable enclosed space. If not, try to keep vehicle away from large trees, streetlamps and power lines. To remove the risk of damage due to flooding, if possible, park your car on high ground.

Take picture of your vehicle

According to Consumer Reports, it’s recommended to take pictures of your vehicles before the windstorm – this also applies to your home as well. This will help to provide your insurance company with proof of damages in the chance that you need to file a claim

Fill your tank

In the event of an emergency, you may be required to evacuate your home or you may want to support others in need. So, ensure that your car’s gas tank is filled or, if it’s an electric vehicle, is fully charged.

Pack an emergency bag

It is also recommended that each family member prepare their own respective emergency bag. These essential items could include water, non-perishable food, cash, phone charger, change of clothes, insurance paperwork, etc.

Insurance paperwork

Consider keeping a copy of the car and home insurance paperwork in a Ziplock bag (to protect from rain and wind damage). If you need to file a claim, be sure to contact your local insurance provider as soon as possible.

Insure Your Home and Auto

Talk to your insurance representative and make sure you have the proper coverage if your home or car is damaged by a tornado or a windstorm.

While this article focusses on protection from high winds, it’s important to remember that torrential rainfall often comes with hurricanes.  So be sure to review our tips to help prevent possible water damage.

For more information on windstorm safety, visit the Government of Canada’s public safety site.

For weather alerts in your province visit Public Weather Alerts for Canada.

Home & Auto Insurance

Disclaimer: This information and the websites referenced are provided for your convenience only and should not be construed as providing legal or insurance advice. Allstate does not control or guarantee the accuracy of any content on any third-party site. Allstate is not responsible for the privacy practices of any third-party site.

Preparing For a Windstorm

The post Preparing For a Windstorm appeared first on GOOD HANDS Blog.

The rhetoric around Bill C-18 has escalated in recent days in light of the awful wildfires in NWT and British Columbia. In my view, the issues associated with these tragic events have little to do with Meta blocking news links and the attempt to bring it into the conversation is a transparent attempt to score political points (the connectivity issues with some NWT communities completely taken offline for days is somehow never mentioned). The reality is that Meta was asked about just this scenario at committee and it made it clear that it would not block any non-news outlet links. That is precisely what has been happening and the government’s legislative choices should be the starting point for understanding why compliance with the law involves blocking a very broad range of news links that extend beyond even those sources that are defined as “eligible news outlets”. 

The government and supporters of Bill C-18 talking points now emphasize two things in relation to Meta blocking news links: the law has yet to take effect and there is room to address their concerns in the regulation-making process. Both of these claims are incredibly deceptive, relying on the assumption that most won’t bother to read the actual legislation. If they did, they would see that (1) the law has received royal assent and can take effect anytime and (2) the regulation making process addresses only a small subset of Bill C-18 issues with most of the core issues finalized. In other words, the time to shape the law and address many of the key concerns was before the government repeatedly cut off debate in order to ensure it that received royal assent before the summer break.

Start with when the law takes effect. As noted above, the law has been passed and received royal assent. It is the law of the land and there is no scope for changes or amendments without a new bill that must be passed by Parliament. Section 93 establishes when the provisions come into force. The law initially envisioned a staged approach whereby certain sections would be proclaimed in effect by the government in stage one, followed by four additional stages, some of which were contingent on certain regulations coming into force. Yet at the last minute the government approved a Senate amendment that basically discarded the entire approach. Section 93(6) states:

(6) Despite subsections (1) to (5), any provision of this Act that does not come into force by order before the 180th day following the day on which this Act receives royal assent comes into force 180 days after the day on which this Act receives royal assent.

The entire law therefore takes effect no later than 180 days after royal assent, which is December 19, 2023. This change was included at the urging of the Canadian media sector (specifically Quebecor) which lobbied to have it take effect as soon as possible. Under this approach, the law can take effect at any time as the government need only issue the relevant Orders-in-Council. There is now little wiggle room. As of today’s post, the latest the law will take effect is in 120 days but it could happen well before that. 

Once the law takes effect, the clock on negotiations and potential mediation and arbitration begins. The timelines are fixed in Section 19(1) of the law: 90 days to negotiate and 120 days for mediation. If there is no agreement and no request to the CRTC to extend the deadlines, the issue can go to final offer arbitration. To be clear, none of these timelines are subject to the regulation making process. They are fixed and they create obvious urgency for anyone facing compliance requirements.

The regulation making process is the other issue worthy of closer examination, given the misleading claims about the ability to use the process to address concerns with the law. Start with some of the issues that are not subject to any new regulations:

• All the definitions, including the definition of digital news intermediary, news business, news content, and news outlet. 
• The requirements related to “making available of news content”, which includes both reproduction and “facilitating access to news” such as linking. These are already defined and there are no additional regulations forthcoming
• The ability for the CRTC to issue an interim order or repeal an exemption order with respect to digital news intermediaries
• The timelines, steps, and scope of the bargaining process
• The limitations on copyright user rights in the bill, including restricting the right of platforms to cite copyright limitations and exceptions
• Which news outlets are considered “eligible news businesses”
• All the rules related to the arbitration process, including selection of arbitrators, dismissal of offers, and much more
• The rules on discrimination, preference and disadvantage
• The rules on production orders

In case this list isn’t obvious, this is the vast majority of the law. There are no forthcoming regulations and nothing further to discuss on them as all of these provisions have received royal assent. 

So what is still subject to potential government regulations? Section 84 spells out most of them:

The Governor in Council may make regulations

(a) respecting the factors set out in section 6;

(b) respecting the time at which or the period within which an operator must notify the Commission under subsection 7(1);

(c) respecting how the Commission is to interpret subparagraphs 11(1)(a)(i) to (viii);

(d) setting out conditions for the purposes of paragraph 11(1)(b); and

(e) setting out conditions in respect of a provincial public broadcaster for the purposes of section 28, if the provincial minister responsible for that broadcaster has made a request to the Minister.

Translated from legalese, these cover:

(a) The factors that are to be considered if there is a “significant bargaining power imbalance” between digital news intermediaries and news outlets

(b) When a digital news intermediary must notify the CRTC that the law applies to it

(c) How the CRTC is to interpret the rules on granting digital news intermediaries an exemption from arbitration (ie. approve the private deals struck by the platforms)

(d) Regulations that establish new conditions for granting an exemption from arbitration

(e) Regulations for including provincial public broadcasters such as TVO as potential eligible news outlets

In addition, Section 76 establishes the power to establish a host of regulations related to penalties. Beyond the government, the CRTC will be empowered to establish regulations on a wide range of issues, but those are supposedly independent of government and not part of this process.

That’s it. The claims associated with the government’s regulation making process have been vastly overstated. Indeed, if it was the platforms making the claims, they would probably be called disinformation. About the only regulation that really matters right now involves Section 11, since it sets the criteria for an exemption from arbitration and approval of the deals between platforms and media companies. The reports about Google and the government negotiating aspects of the law surely involves what the exemption criteria is and how it will be interpreted. For example, the inclusion of a minimum spend by way of regulation would provide cost certainty and effectively have the government dictate to the CRTC how the criteria should be interpreted (namely, ignore them all if Google meets the spending target). The remainder are minor and have no real impact on how the law will be applied to Meta or Google.

When News Media Canada says “what we’re saying to Meta is, ‛The regulations aren’t drafted yet. Pick up a pen. Put down your saber and let’s try to work through this together” it’s a fake out designed to deceive. There are no regulations to be discussed that change the core elements of the law. It’s been decided, has received royal assent, and kicks in anytime within the next 120 days. News Media Canada and the associated lobby groups won the battle for Bill C-18. It’s the resulting consequences they don’t like.

The post The Bill C-18 Regulation Fake-Out: Setting the Record Straight on When Bill C-18 Takes Effect and the Regulation Making Process appeared first on Michael Geist.

So what’s next for Rachel Notley?

The buzz grows louder by the day that sooner than later Ms. Notley is going to move on from her present role as Alberta’s Opposition leader. 

Gossips are hinting at sometime early in the new year, possibly January. 

As for Ms. Notley herself and her inner circle, they’re playing it close to their vests. For now. 

Unusually for a party leader who has just lost an election on which many supporters had pinned their hopes, there is no clamour within the NDP Caucus or most of the party for Ms. Notley to go. 

Oh sure, there are few cranky voices, mostly associated with the leftward reaches of the party, nowadays a definite minority, who express bitterness about the strategy adopted by the NDP in the 2023 election campaign.

But really, caucus members and party supporters alike wonder, who else is there? 

Indeed, a lot of time is spent in NDP circles nowadays quietly ruminating about who else there is, whether or not they’d run for the leadership, and how much they’d mess it up if they got it. 

To a remarkable degree, Ms. Notley has rebuilt the party in her own image since she became leader in October 2014 – that is to say, progressive, but also quite conservative in a small-c, lawyerly sort of way.

Lose in 2019 and 2023 though her party did, she brought it to government in 2015 – something no one expected until about two weeks before the vote on May 5 that year, and that includes Ms. Notley and the NDP – for which she is still honoured, even loved, in Alberta NDP circles. 

In Edmonton, the NDP has become is a well-oiled machine, painting the town solid orange in provincial politics. In Calgary, not so much. United Conservative Party Premier Danielle Smith only had to appear reasonable in one short debate, it would seem, to scrape up another Conservative victory, although surely many Albertans are now suffering buyer’s remorse. 

As for rural Alberta, it is utter darkness for the NDP – probably for all of eternity. Never mind what’s the matter with Kansas. What’s the matter with Red Deer? 

The thing is, you need two out of those three to win the Legislature in Alberta, and while the NDP gained ground in Calgary it couldn’t gain enough. Close may count in more recreational activities than horseshoes and hand grenades, but politics isn’t one of them. 

So what’s left for Rachel Notley to do? She’s only 59 and astoundingly fit. She remains as sharp as the proverbial tack. 

Right now, according to her husband’s social media pages, she’s taking a break at a lake in B.C. She looks very relaxed. Thinking about retirement? Thinking about something else? Or just chillin’ in the Kootenays? 

Andrew Traynor has an idea. 

“Rachel Notley could win basically any seat in Edmonton if she ran federally. Edmonton-Centre is particularly winnable for a New Democrat,” Mr. Traynor, known on Twitter as Robert Andrew Francis, tweeted Tuesday. “It’s likely this is the last Federal election with the current NDP & LPC leaders.”

You may ask: Just who is Mr. Traynor? The short answer is he’s an articling student at law with an Edmonton legal firm. 

But he’s had a long involvement in NDP politics and I fondly remember the day in 2012 he and a few others met in my living room in St. Albert and formally re-established an NDP constituency association in the riding. Soon, he was president of the constituency association. 

It seemed a bit like tilting at a windmill at the time, but who knew there’d be an NDP government in less than three years and that St. Albert would be represented by a good New Democrat MLA, Marie Renaud, ever since?

So I give Mr. Traynor some credit for good political instincts, and his tweet prompted these musings. 

“After three campaigns for government and even more as MLA, it’s totally fair to decide to pack it in and cap off a legendary career,” he went on. “But there *is* a potential path to Prime Minister Rachel Notley.”

Now may seem to you to be unlikely. As Mr. Traynor admitted, he was just “throwing it out there with a massive grain of salt.”

Still, think about it. 

After almost a decade, the country sure feels like it’s had enough of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Despite recent bad polls, he still might win in a year or two, though. As veteran political commentator Michael Harris put it yesterday in The Tyee, “there are few things less relevant than a mid-summer poll with no election in sight.” 

And it would seem that for every Canadian who can’t stand the PM, there’s one who finds Conservative Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre repellent. As Mr. Harris pointed out, the Conservatives’ record in office is even worse than that of the Liberals. 

In May 2011, the natural place for Canadians who couldn’t abide the Conservatives and felt no love for the Liberals to turn was the NDP, led by Jack Layton. It nearly worked, and had Mr. Layton survived, he might well have been prime minister soon enough.

After Mr. Layton’s death on Aug. 22 that year, the party chose Thomas Mulcair, perhaps the most effective federal Opposition leader of the modern era, but too Liberal, it would seem, for many NDP activists. 

The best that can be said about their successor, Jagmeet Singh, is that he has been underwhelming. And what kind of an alternative is an NDP that supports the Liberals at every turn and keeps their government afloat? That strategy has its proponents, but at this point it’s turning into not much more than an effective talking point for angry Conservatives.

And where did the NDP gain a seat in the last federal election in 2021? In Edmonton – a victory, arguably, that the federal party owes more to Ms. Notley than to Mr. Singh. 

One way or another, the NDP risks a drubbing in the next federal election – probably at the hands of the Liberals as voters who abhor the Conservatives hold their noses and vote for Mr. Trudeau’s party. 

But considerable numbers of NDP voters in Western Canada could hold their noses and vote for Mr. Poilievre as well – it’s happened before, in 1993 and 1997, when anti-establishment New Democrats in the West voted for Preston Manning’s Reform Party. 

To be blunt, if the national NDP is going to survive it needs a leader stronger than Mr. Singh.

Who, in Opposition, would be more like Mr. Mulcair than Ms. Notley? 

And who would be more like Mr. Layton in the minds of Canadian voters than Ms. Notley? 

And wouldn’t it be nice to see former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s dream come true that, finally, the premiership of Alberta could be a stepping stone to the Prime Minister’s Office? Only just not for him.

The Canadian government released a detailed document last week outlining the specifics behind its draft Digital Services Tax Act. No actual legislation has yet been passed, but the government is providing guidance on how the potential law would be interpreted assuming it takes effect next year. The document has sparked criticism from business groups and the U.S. government given that it envisions a retroactive three percent tax that will hit a wide range of businesses. Further, the Canadian plan is facing significant opposition from many OECD countries since it may jeopardize a global agreement that is designed to address the digital services tax issue. While the digital services tax (DST) is typically framed as a tax on big tech, the reality is that the Canadian version extends far beyond just companies such as Google and Facebook, potentially including major Canadian retailers such as Canadian Tire, Loblaws, and others.

My view is that unlike Bills C-11 and C-18, which create cross-industry subsidy models funded by tech companies to support government policy, appropriate taxation models is the far better approach to ensure that companies “pay their fair share”. While a DST may be a good approach (particularly if part of a global system), the Canadian plan to implement the tax retroactively next year creates some significant risks. In fact, our current approach raises the prospect of U.S. tariff retaliation, opposition from many allies at the OECD, and expanded news link blocking in response to Bill C-18.

First, the Canadian DST is exceptionally complex, covering a wide range of digital revenues that occur in Canada. The baseline applicability is for companies that generate 750 million euros (about C$1.1 billion) in global revenue of which at least $20 million is digital services revenue in Canada. Digital services revenue can arise from (1) online marketplace services revenue (which would cover an Ebay, Airbnb or Uber), (2) online advertising services revenue (Google or Microsoft), (3) social media services revenue (Facebook or TikTok), and (4) user data revenue (any company that collects and sells user data). Because the threshold involves general global revenues and Canadian digital service revenues, the companies likely to be caught by the DST involve far more than just U.S. Internet companies. 

The rules for each of the digital service revenue categories gets very complicated very quickly. For example, consider the guidance related to the need for the digital services revenues to occur in Canada. The law requires that the user be located in Canada, which the government says will be based on a reasonableness test. Take targeted advertising revenues, which would require that the user be physically located in Canada at the time. But what if the user uses a privacy tool to limit the tracking? Those ads are excluded:

A social media platform has a user who uses a privacy filter that prevents any personal information from being collected by the interface. Additionally, the content posted by the user on the social media platform does not indicate the user’s location. As the social media platform has no data by which to determine location, this user is not considered located in Canada or outside of Canada. As such, the user is not a user of determinable location.

What if the user ships goods from an online marketplace to Canada but the billing address in the U.S.? The government says that revenue is treated as Canadian:

An online marketplace has a user that participated in multiple transactions on the marketplace. Their shipping address is in Canada and their billing address is outside Canada. In such a case, it may be reasonable to conclude that the user is in Canada and outside Canada. Because of the default rule, such a user would be considered a user located in Canada (and a user of determinable location).

These are just two examples. Since the law applies retroactively to all transactions since the start of 2022, it involves reviewing literally billions of transactions and advertisements to determine location, revenues, and more. This is certainly isn’t disqualifying, but it’s complicated.

Second, the political situation associated with the Canadian DST creates some very significant and potentially costly risks. At the bi-lateral level, the U.S. has stated unequivocally that it will retaliate against a Canadian DST, raising the spectre of billions in retaliatory tariffs. The U.S. tariffs would not necessarily target Canadian tech companies, but could be used to target anything such as steel, dairy, or lumber. In other words, it can target the most sensitive areas for maximum impact. If the U.S. does indeed impose retaliatory tariffs, the net gain from the DST could be largely wiped out. The Canadian gamble appears to be a replay of Bill C-18, where it bet that companies such as Meta would not go ahead with news blocking. In this instance, the bet is that the U.S. will not retaliate. Yet with the Canadian DST undermining President Joe Biden’s plan for a global tax deal and the DST to take effect during a U.S. presidential election year in which domestic policy is likely to play a major role, that appears to be a risky bet.

Third, the Canadian approach also creates global risks with leading allies since it may undo an agreement at the OECD to address the proliferations of DSTs. Canada has said it would only impose its DST if the OECD model does not take effect. While the original start date of the end of 2023 no longer seems realistic, virtually all other countries agreed to extend the deadline by a year. Canada stands virtually alone in opposing the extension, which has raised tensions with other countries. 

Fourth, the Canadian DST approach may also have implications for Bills C-11 and C-18. While those laws stand apart from the DST, the bottom line is that hundreds of millions in DST tax liability combined with mandated payments of hundreds of millions for Cancon or news links from the same pot of money is going to have an impact. The retroactive application of a DST seems likely to increase consumer costs in Canada as the tax liability is passed along to Canadian consumers, lead to a challenge of Bill C-11 costs, and make a deal with Google on mandated payments for links far less likely. If that is the case, the DST would increase the chance the company complies with Bill C-18 by following the Meta model of removing links to Canadian news and canceling existing news deals. In other words, it will be Canadian news outlets and the Canadian public that bear the brunt of those costs. The government may still insist that it does not want to wait any further on the DST, but Canadians should at least recognize the costs and risks associated with the decision.

The post It’s Complicated: Unpacking the Risks Behind Canada’s Digital Services Tax Plan appeared first on Michael Geist.

Blocking of news links on Facebook and Instagram in Canada has becomes increasingly widespread in recent days, leading to a growing number of public comments from media outlets and reporters expressing surprise or shock about the scope of the link blocking. Indeed, outlets with blocked links include university student newspapers, radio stations, and foreign news outlets. While there may have been some errors (Facebook has a page to seek review of any blocked link decision), the inclusion of a very wide range of Canadian and foreign news outlets is no accident. Rather, it reflects the government’s Bill C-18 approach, which effectively covers all news outlets worldwide whose links are accessed in Canada. The Canadian government could have adopted a more targeted approach – for example, limiting the scope to news links from those news outlets eligible to negotiate agreements with Internet platforms under the law – but it instead went for the broadest possible approach that includes foreign news outlets with little or no connection to Canada.

Understanding why Bill C-18 covers news links from outlets who are not “eligible news businesses” under the law requires unpacking several provisions. First, start with the definition of a “digital news intermediary”, which states:

digital news intermediary means an online communications platform, including a search engine or social media service, that is subject to the legislative authority of Parliament and that makes news content produced by news outlets available to persons in Canada. It does not include an online communications platform that is a messaging service the primary purpose of which is to allow persons to communicate with each other privately.‍ 

This definition is critical since the only companies that are subject to Bill C-18’s requirement to negotiate agreements with news outlets are (1) those that qualify as DNIs under this definition and (2) meet the requirements found in Section 6 on a significant bargaining power imbalance. The absence of significant bargaining power imbalance is why companies such as Twitter, Microsoft or Apple are not subject to the law. That leaves Google and Meta, provided that they qualify as DNIs. The key phrase in the qualification requirement is that the companies “make news content produced by news outlets available to persons in Canada.” If the companies do not make news content produced by news outlets available to persons in Canada they are not DNIs and are not subject to the law.

So what does “make news content produced by news outlets available to persons in Canada” mean? First, making news available includes:

(a) the news content, or any portion of it, is reproduced; or

(b) access to the news content, or any portion of it, is facilitated by any means, including an index, aggregation or ranking of news content.

Government officials have confirmed that facilitation by any means includes linking to the news content.

Since linking is sufficient for the purposes of making news content available, the remaining two relevant definitions involve “news content” and “news outlet.” News content is defined as:

content — in any format, including an audio or audiovisual format — that reports on, investigates or explains current issues or events of public interest and includes such content that an Indigenous news outlet makes available by means of Indigenous storytelling.‍

This broad definition covers all news content in any format, which helps explain why everything from newspapers to podcasts are covered by the law.

Second, a news outlet: 

means an undertaking or any distinct part of an undertaking whose primary purpose is to produce news content and includes an Indigenous news outlet or an official language minority community news outlet.‍

This notably does not limit the geographical scope of news outlets, which means the news content that a DNI makes available through linking can come from any news outlet anywhere the world. The law includes a separate definition for “eligible news business” (defined at Section 27), which are news outlets that qualify for the law’s negotiation and arbitration system. The government could have provided that DNI’s “make news content produced by eligible news businesses available to persons in Canada.” If it had done so, only links to news from eligible news businesses would result in an Internet platform being treated as a DNI. The news link blocking would have therefore been limited to eligible news business content and left alone most foreign news links and some Canadian news outlets.

Yet the government’s choice was to try to bring Meta and Google into the scope of the law by virtue of any news links to any news outlet anywhere in the world, even if those outlets have nothing to do with Canada or with the Bill C-18 system. Given Meta’s stated goal of complying with Bill C-18 by removing links to news content that would render it a DNI, the government’s legislative choice of covering all news links from all news outlets therefore effectively requires it to block all of those news links. 

The post Why Is Meta Blocking All News Links? Because Bill C-18 Covers All News Outlets appeared first on Michael Geist.

Police services across Canada are grappling with how they will relay emergency information, including breaking news and details of missing persons, once Meta begins permanently removing news from its social media platforms.