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Just a reminder. Meta is blocking ALL news organizations on its social media sites for Canadian users right now. Instagram. Facebook.
In the middle of a #climatecrisis. With heat waves, drought conditions and wildfires. Also, with Covid cases rising.
Canadians are unable to share news articles on the most popular social media sites as the company flexes its muscle in a dispute with the government.
#Clarification: there is no #legal #dispute involved here.
The #Canadian #government passed bill #C18, which says #Facebook, #Google, et al must #pay to #link to Canadian news stories.
It is now the law of the land. So companies have a choice: continue linking to Canadian news sites and pay for the privilege, or stop linking to Canadian news sites.
There is no third option.
A link tax makes zero #economic sense, so they chose option 2. Blame politicians, not the companies.
@cazabon I'm going to say Meta should obey the law and pay because people's lives may be in danger. I'm never shy about blaming politicians but I do not have a lot of sympathy for billionaires right now.
They are in compliance with the law:
If they link to a news site, they must pay.
If they don't, they don't.
They chose not to link.
Your disdain for billionaires is something I share too. But this cock-up is government's.
They were warned and they chose this path.
@staidwinnow @cazabon There's plenty of blame to go around in this one. And sorry for venting but there are also municipalities and governments not doing a good job with crisis comms. A person shouldn't have to rely on Facebook for their evacuation plan info but here we are.
@JEmphatically @staidwinnow @cazabon The problem is, we LET ourselves get into this situation. And by we, I mean more the greater general public. Posting on Mastodon about the evils of Meta is preaching to the choir — we made the decision to leave the status quo. But the majority of our society is completely unaware of the fact we’re essentially becoming feudalism 2.0, but instead of calling them lords and serfs, it’s CEOs and consumers.
@RebeccaBredin @JEmphatically @staidwinnow
If you're saying the general public should stop relying on #centralized, #private walled-garden #services and instead use #open, #federated #protocols and #services operated in a community-owned-and-operated way, then I am 10^6 percent behind you.
How you translate that into getting your friends off #Twitter or your grandparents off #Facebook is an entirely different problem, which may not be soluble.
@cazabon @JEmphatically @staidwinnow I don’t even know if I would say be off completely, I’d be happy with people learning to diversify. Or at least look at Meta with a more critical eye. That would be a good start. Just being able to identify when they’re being treated awful is the first step to change.