Do media aggregators have a duty to provide links to public news sources in emergencies?
Do media aggregators have a duty to provide links to public news sources in emergencies?
The NWT government and city of Yellowknife are describing in tweets, Instagram messages etc. how to search key evacuation information on CPAC and CBC. The broadcast carriers have a duty to carry emergency information, but Meta and X are blocking links.
While internet access is reportedly limited in Yellowknife, residents are finding this a barrier to getting current and accurate information. Even links to CBC radio are blocked.
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So what's the situation on Lemmy? Who will pay for this article's link to CBC?
Lemmy is neither large enough nor monetizing our views so it’s outside the scope of the legislation and the new regulations that will need to be written, formally consulted through the Canada Gazette process and then approved by Cabinet. Basically, what Lemmy’s doing is still fair use by a carrier.
As I understand it, the Canadian legislation is different than the Australian one in that the Australian version would just have had a minister name which companies would be subject to the tax.
Canada, having been in trade disputes with the US over ministerial designation processes that can be argued to lack transparency, went a different route that would make the tax come into effect for large platforms, monetizing content without paying the sources/creators.
Is monetization required for a site to qualify as a digital news intermediary though? It seems like there just needs to be an imbalance:
https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/royal-assent
Application 6 This Act applies in respect of a digital news intermediary if, having regard to the following factors, there is a significant bargaining power imbalance between its operator and news businesses:
(a) the size of the intermediary or the operator;
(b) whether the market for the intermediary gives the operator a strategic advantage over news businesses; and
(c) whether the intermediary occupies a prominent market position.
What happens when a Lemmy instance gets too big?
The legislation talks in effect about market power and the benefit to the carrier itself. Without monetization, there wouldn’t be an issue.
If an instance is running ads on article summaries then it would be the owner of that instance