The entire city of #Yellowknife is being evacuated. This is unprecedented and terrifying.
And thousands of citizens aren’t aware because Meta continues to block news in the country.
This is what happens when citizens are convinced to use an American multinational corporation as their community’s primary communications channel — a corporation that couldn’t give two shits about anything except its “fiduciary duty” to shareholders.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nwt-wildfire-emergency-update-august-16-1.6938756
Regarding the blocking of Canadian news, can we at least place the #blame where it belongs?
#Canadian #Legacy #Media convinced the #government of #Canada to pass a law forcing #Facebook and #Google to pay to show snippets of, and #link to, Canadian news articles.
So Facebook and Google had a choice: they could continue to do this, and pay for the privilege, or they could stop linking to it. There was no third option.
We forced the choice on them; blame our #politicians.
Thanks for repeating the Facebook corporate line. Very original.
Facebook, Google, et al soak up all the ad revenue so that the news corporations, the ones with actual reporters, are struggling. They had the choice to contribute for the reportage they skim, or not. They chose not.
I think the Canadian government hasn't gone far enough. Next step, declare them publishers. Make them legally liable for every bit of slander, libel, and defamation they carry on their sites.
I'm not a Facebook shill; I detest Facebook and always have; I have never had an account. I would be perfectly happy to drop Zuckerberg into whichever of Hawaii's volcanoes is closest to his private estate.
I'm also not defending Google - I don't use their services and don't have an account there, either.
What I'm saying is that this outcome was both #predictable - it doesn't make #financial sense to pay to link - and #predicted. Acting shocked now is #disingenuous.
@cazabon @Sir_Osis_of_Liver @tod Didn’t they agree to pay in Australia?
@KilKerrin @Yup_Its_Holly Not quite. Facebook shut down news in the country before the law took place. This sent legislators into a scramble to put last minute changes into the law. These changes allowed social media to come up with their own private deals with the media companies. As long as they had such a deal on record, the law didn't apply.
So, are they paying something? Yeah, probably. But "did they agree to pay it"? Not so much.
