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Top-level
 @atomicpoet @mmasnick will be interesting to see who/how that is determined legally. For example, if @sfba.social posts a link to a local news story are they now a publisher? Who decides? And further, if there's a risk of falling into the publisher category, does that scare away instance owners from linking to content? Oh and btw, is this limited to media cos only? What about individuals who create video, blog posts, podcasts or for that matter individuals who create interesting threads? 14 comments
 @mike @mmasnick How they define "digital news intermediary": "...an online communications platform, including a search engine or social media service, that is subject to the legislative authority of Parliament and that makes news content produced by news outlets available to persons in Canada. It does not include an online communications platform that is a messaging service the primary purpose of which is to allow persons to communicate with each other privately." @atomicpoet @mmasnick hmmm. the way this is written sounds like instance owners that are publicly federated with others would have to pay. @mike @mmasnick Also, there's 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. @mike @mmasnick So the other question, of course, is what is a "messaging service the primary purpose of which is to allow persons to communicate with each other privately"? More specifically, how do we define "private"? Is it a message sent between two private citizens? Or does this pertain to visibility? @atomicpoet @mike @mmasnick @Cassandra @mike @mmasnick But is that how governments define "private"? @atomicpoet @mike @mmasnick  @atomicpoet @mike @mmasnick @atomicpoet @mmasnick BTW, I would not put it past Facebook to ultimately realize that this is an awesome way to shutdown the public fediverse... they will have no problem paying this fee in exchange for shutting down all the smaller instance owners in the fediverse. Then they can claim to be open on activitypub knowing they safely suppressed the alternatives. The biggest players are expert at using laws like this to their advantage so policy makers have to think about this before they act. |
Gregory's Server
@mike @mmasnick Here's the text of Bill C-18: https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/third-reading