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.
So they shouldn’t compensate the people whose work brings them profit? Know what we call that in the physical world?
Stealing.
If the government is willing to make an exception for emergency news, that Meta proved they’re able to do it in Australia and even told the Canadian government it’s something they could do, then who’s in the wrong here?
So Lemmy instance admins should be paying for all the links on their sites too?
Whose work is bringing who profit?
The cruel reality is that the Canadian media need Facebook more than Facebook needs Canadian media.
Journalists and media company produce content, journalists are paid by media company that profit from their work and pay taxes on that profit.
Facebook is used to share content from media companies and make profit from it, they don’t compensate media companies or pay taxes in Canada.
Media companies receive a small bump in traffic compared to the total number of views, they get a small bump in profit from ads revenues on their website and they pay taxes on it.
In the end the majority of revenues generated from views on Facebook doesn’t profit the content creators/owners in any way nor does it profit the country in which the owners are established.
So you need me to make it even simpler than that? You’re arguing that medias should settle for the scraps when Facebook is feasting by exploiting their work.
The real issue is whether these apps should carry emergency alerts and information
Should they? Absolutely. Should they be forced to? I don’t think so.
But, it seems like an easy gesture of goodwill to do it, if there’s a system in place for it.
It’s more than time that we show these private platforms that they can’t act however they want if they want to do business in our country without paying a cent of taxes on the profit they make here. Yes they should be forced to pay by our rules or face the prospect of being outright banned in Canada.
We made the rules, and now they’re playing by them. You can force them to pay for news links, but you can’t force them to display news links and make them pay for them.
