In The Line, Jen Gerson fought the good fight as long as she could, but finally had to load up the old shotgun and share both barrels with the participants in the ongoing clusterfarce over the Online News Act (the artist formerly known as Bill C-18):
Look, I’ve largely said my piece on the Online News Act: it’s poorly conceived legislation that risked terrible outcomes. It’s pointless, now, with those terrible outcomes unfolding, to say “I told you so”.
But the response to the news that Meta has decided to continue blocking news — even in the face of devastating wildfires in B.C. and the Northwest Territories — has been such disingenuous dumbfuckery from every corner that I have failed to bestill my cursed fingertips.
Let’s start with this quote from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who at a recent press conference, said: “Right now in an emergency situation where up-to-date local information is more important than ever, Facebook’s putting corporate profits ahead of people’s safety, ahead of supporting quality local journalism … This is not the time for that”.
Wait, a major global corporation that has been labelled as actually literally evil by both progressives and conservatives in recent years is putting its own profits and self-interest ahead of the priorities and values of politicians and pundits?
Sir, surely thou art in jest.
Is this government only now figuring out that major global corporations exist to extract profits; that whatever social corporate responsibility roles they may choose to enact, they aren’t a public service? Is Trudeau shocked — shocked, I say! — to just this very moment discover that Meta isn’t actually some combination of the Red Cross and Reuters?
I mean … welcome to the adult world, I guess, and please leave your copy of Adbusters near the coat check at the door.
But if Meta is as evil as all that, why did so few politicos or pundits anticipate that the company would follow through on its explicit threat to block news if C-18 were passed? This is like watching an Allied general who says: “I think these Nazi fellows are the baddies!” and then gets flustered when the guys with skulls on their caps pull out their guns and start shooting in the midst of afternoon trench tea. “Well, I never. That’s hardly sporting!” This is some Black Adder comedy, friends, and we may be on the side of the angels, but our angels also happen to be a little slow in the head.
Oh, but surely Meta wouldn’t block news to put their own self interest “ahead of people’s safety”, hmmmm?
With advance apologies, but is our antipathy toward Meta so intense that we’re going to straight-face pretend that AM radio, FM radio, emergency text alerts and broadcasts, municipal and provincial emergency websites, formal and informal social media networks and chat groups, and local news broadcasts with websites that can be accessed directly through web browsers all just ceased to exist, simultaneously, the very moment that CBC stopped being able to post news links to Instagram?
If Facebook is actually putting lives in danger, that’s an admission of impotence and incompetence from our entire communications infrastructure, including government, private and public media. It is an incredible and embarrassing self-own.
