Canadian perspectives on Bill C-18
A survey held in September 2023 revealed that Canadians are split in their support for the bill, and a third admitted not knowing enough about the situation to comment. Younger consumers were the most likely to oppose Bill C-18 – perhaps unsurprising given this demographic’s high engagement with social media in general and their tendency to get news in on such platforms. Coming to the question of ethics, only around a third of Canadians felt that Bill C-18 was a good thing in that it could help struggling media gain additional revenue from social media platforms. The majority believed news should be free and accessible for everyone and media outlets under financial pressure had other ways to make money. Since buying physical newspapers fell out of favor and reading free online news became the norm, it is indeed challenging to expect consumers to accept that news will no longer be available via popular networks like Facebook and Instagram.The same applies when thinking about the topic of asking consumers to pay for news – around 80 to 90 percent of Canadians do not pay for an online news subscription. Whilst Bill C-18 does not require audiences to pay, news organizations may hope that a lack of free news on social media could lead to sign-ups. The aforementioned data, however, is evidence enough that this is an unlikely eventuality, especially in the midst of an economic downturn. At the same time, it is of limited value to expect consumers to prioritize paying for news at all if changes fail to come from the top.
So: will Big Tech pay? There is evidence to suggest so. Canada was not the first country to go to battle with Big Tech. In 2021, Australia passed its own similar law, the News Media Bargaining Code, which although controversial, has since seen success. A number of agreements were made which may never have come to pass without the code.