Last week, Canada passed the Online News Act, legislation that requires tech platforms to remunerate Canadian news outlets, and the platforms are not happy. In response, Google announced it will remove links to Canadian news outlets from its products. Meta also said it would remove Canadian news from Facebook and Instagram. 

The Act itself has yet to be implemented- it has to first go through a regulatory process to sort out how it will work. So, these moves by the platforms may be a tactic in the negotiation of the particulars. But the platforms also clearly want to send a message to other jurisdictions where similar legislation is under consideration.

For an expert opinion on the politics surrounding Canada’s Online News Act and its broader implications, Tech Policy Press Contributing Editor Ben Lennett spoke to one person who has been following it closely from his perch in Montreal. Taylor Owen is the Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communications, the founding director of The Center for Media, Technology and Democracy, and an Associate Professor in the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University.