By Ismail Shakil
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday that Meta Platforms’ opposition to a bill requiring Facebook and other internet companies to pay for journalistic content is based on a flawed argument that news have no economic value.
Speaking before a parliamentary committee on the Trudeau government’s legislation on Monday, a Meta employee said the news had social value but not economic value for the company.
“If we’re being asked to compensate these publishers for material that has no economic value to us, that’s where the problem lies,” Meta Canada public policy officer Rachel Curran told the committee.
Trudeau said on Tuesday that “this argument made by the internet giants is not only wrong, it is dangerous for our democracy, for our economy.”
Facebook’s stance against paying for information “shows how deeply irresponsible and alienated they are,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa.
Bill C-18, or the “Online News Act”, proposes rules to force platforms like Facebook and Google to negotiate commercial agreements and pay media outlets for their content, a measure similar to a law passed in Australia in 2021.
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