When things go squirrelly

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/08/2023 (790 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The headline could not have been more shocking. BREAKING: Mark Zuckerberg discovered dead in midst of squirrel orgy and you know this is from a real news source since it’s being blocked on META.

In the news business, we call this kind of exclusive news story a “good get.” There was only one problem. Zuckerberg — founder and CEO of Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — did not really attend a squirrel orgy and according to all other reports, is very much alive.

That does not mean, however, that there wasn’t a real news story buried in this headline, which appeared on the satirical news website, The Beaverton.

Although it is admittedly not a real source of news and information, The Beaverton indeed became one of the news sources that Meta blocked recently in retaliation for the federal government’s decision to pass new legislation — the Online News Act — to force tech behemoths to pay more for content generated by legitimate news organizations. Despite its clearly satirical orientation, Meta blocked The Beaverton from all Meta platforms, which the operators of the website claim they need to drive audience and advertising rates.

The war of attrition being waged between Meta and Ottawa is already having a dire impact on Canadian news organizations. In a desperate response, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and News Media Canada, which represents newspapers, issued a joint statement calling on the federal government to launch an investigation under the powers granted to the Competition Bureau to determine if Meta’s actions amount to “anti-competitive” behaviour.

There is, in fact, a section of the Competition Act, that prohibits companies from abusing or exploiting a dominant market position to harm competitors.

In this case, broadcasters and newspaper publishers are arguing that as competitors for digital advertising revenue, Meta is exploiting its dominant market position by blocking content and thereby shrinking the audience for Canadian news content. And it should be noted that by most estimates, Meta and fellow tech giant Google already claim more than 80 per cent of all the global revenue generated by digital advertising.

For its part, Meta refuses to acknowledge that it gets any value from allowing links to news content. On the contrary, the only beneficiaries are the news organizations, who are using Facebook and Instagram to grow their audiences. But that claim does not reflect the fact that Canadians, and in fact most Facebook and Instagram users around the world, rely on both platforms to stay up to date with news and current events.

Most surveys of Meta users — and Facebook alone has more than three billion monthly active users — indicate that about six in 10 people use the two platforms to access news content. That puts news just behind posting photos or videos and just ahead of funny and entertaining content. The numbers don’t lie: although people love their funny cat videos, they are slightly more reliant on social media for news.

Will the Competition Act complaint help move us past the impasse between Meta and the federal government? The Competition Bureau process, particularly when dealing with a complex issue like this, is unlikely to be a source of immediate relief. Rather, the complaint and the bureau’s willingness to support the idea of an investigation, could prove decisive. Meta does not want, nor need, more government agencies peaking under the hood of its business to find anti-competitive practices.

The European Union has already levied billions of dollars in fines against Google for employing anti-competitive practices. And the EU fined Meta more than half a billion dollars earlier this year over similar concerns.

There will need to be compromise on all sides to put this dispute to bed, before it begins to drive news organizations out of business. Because with all due respect to The Beaverton, this is no laughing matter.