Canada Demands Meta Lift News Ban To Allow Wildfire Info Sharing (reuters.com) 170
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The Canadian government on Friday demanded that Meta lift a "reckless" ban on domestic news from its platforms to allow people to share information about wildfires in the west of the country. Meta started blocking news on its Facebook and Instagram platforms for all users in Canada this month in response to a new law requiring internet giants to pay for news articles. Some people fleeing wildfires in the remote northern town of Yellowknife have complained to domestic media that the ban prevented them from sharing important data about the fires.
"Meta's reckless choice to block news ... is hurting access to vital information on Facebook and Instagram," Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a social media post. "We are calling on them to reinstate news sharing today for the safety of Canadians facing this emergency. We need more news right now, not less," she said. Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez earlier said the ban meant people did not have access to crucial information. Chris Bittle, a legislator for the ruling Liberal Party, complained on Thursday that "Meta's actions to block news are reckless and irresponsible." Ollie Williams, who runs Yellowknife's Cabin Radio digital radio station, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that people were posting screen shots of information on Facebook since they could not share links to news feeds. A Meta spokesperson responded by saying that the company had activated the "Safety Check" feature on Facebook that allows users to mark that they are safe in the wake of a natural disaster or a crisis.
"Meta's reckless choice to block news ... is hurting access to vital information on Facebook and Instagram," Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a social media post. "We are calling on them to reinstate news sharing today for the safety of Canadians facing this emergency. We need more news right now, not less," she said. Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez earlier said the ban meant people did not have access to crucial information. Chris Bittle, a legislator for the ruling Liberal Party, complained on Thursday that "Meta's actions to block news are reckless and irresponsible." Ollie Williams, who runs Yellowknife's Cabin Radio digital radio station, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that people were posting screen shots of information on Facebook since they could not share links to news feeds. A Meta spokesperson responded by saying that the company had activated the "Safety Check" feature on Facebook that allows users to mark that they are safe in the wake of a natural disaster or a crisis.
So, wait a minute! (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean passing laws to try to extort money out of a foreign company might have undesirable side effects!?
Re:So, wait a minute! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: So, wait a minute! (Score:3)
Neither the UK nor the EU have received this lack of success memo yet.
Re:So, wait a minute! (Score:5, Interesting)
Almost as if the blade were sharp on both sides... cutting both ways... a double edged sword, if you will.
I'm not saying that Zuckerfuck wants people to die to prove his point to the Canadian government... just that this situation is very much proving the point that if you cut off your nose to spite your face, you may regret it.
(have I mixed enough metaphors yet?)
Re:So, wait a minute! (Score:5, Insightful)
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More like a population of people who becomes so dependent on social media that they can't get information any other way any longer has bad side effects.
Does Canada have a "NOAA Weather Alert" style system in place?
My car, a radio in my office, and a radio in my house all tune into the strongest NOAA radio channel they can find and then will go off any time of the day or night when there's an emergency....like a forest fire, tornado, extreme thunderstorm, damaging hail, etc...basically anything that is imminently dangerous to life or property.
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Undesireable? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: Undesireable? (Score:5)
Because we're talking about public safety instead of gatekeeping?
Not at all. Facebook should never ever be relied on for public safety as current events aptly demonstrate. Fortunately, it is not at all necessary for public safety since there are many, many other ways to stay informed. Indeed, you have to wonder why the government, whose primary concern should be public safety, is not telling people to use these alternatives instead of trying to score points against Facebook.
Re: Undesireable? (Score:4)
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Re: Undesireable? (Score:4, Funny)
Whenever there's a quake, a flood or a wildfire, I always check Facebook first for the latest news! /s
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You really should be checking /. for breaking news. (/s has been globally applied to this story)
Re: So, wait a minute! (Score:4, Funny)
Canada "Demands"?
LOL
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Canada "Demands"?
LOL
That is just as funny as France "Demands"
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I see the humor in that perspective as well. Though it's useful to remind ourselves that social media is cancer of the mind. It provokes outrage and generally encourages people to be their worst selves, both when criticizing other and when desperately wanting some reaction for self. That's not to mention the ADD-like mental patterns that form in adults that start to be too much online.
So the other perspective is that the US has spewed this net-cancer onto the rest of the world, and the only reasonable count
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"France fights..."
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Canada "Demands"?
LOL
Yes, it is funny. Because that's not what happened.
... is hurting access to vital information on Facebook and Instagram."
Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a social media post, "Meta's reckless choice to block news
Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez earlier said the ban meant people did not have access to crucial information.
Chris Bittle, a legislator for the ruling Liberal Party, complained on Thursday that "Meta's actions to block news are reckless and irresponsible."
Ollie Williams, who runs
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Exactly this. No one in Canada cares, except the media moguls.
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extort? you mean META using news channels to remain relevant to their users and not compensating the news agencies for said content is fine? Them protesting the law forcing them to negotiate a deal with news agencies by stopping ALL news sharing... that by META and by it's users in regions affected by an environmental emergency is perfectly fine so that people who for what ever dumb reason rely on Facebook to get their news. /s I'm not judging them (the people), maybe they don't trust networks, and only t
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extort? you mean META using news channels to remain relevant to their users
By your logic, since they don't currently have those news channels, they are not currently relevant to their users.
Ergo, it's no big deal that they don't have those news channels.
Perhaps you should rethink your "logic."
Re: So, wait a minute! (Score:4, Insightful)
All Trudope has to do is repeal his new revenue "sharing"/extortion law. This is entirely in his control.
I dunno (Score:5, Insightful)
We have CBC television and radio pretty much everywhere in the country where there are more than 3 people. If you have the Internet, you're somewhere with enough population density you'd have to be pretty dense personally to not know about an evacuation order.
People who need Facebook to tell them they're in the path of a fire should probably just be allowed to burn for the good of the gene pool.
Re: I dunno (Score:3)
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I guess it's the way of them just whining we want you to give us money but won't but trying to find a different way to do it? Like 'for the children' or 'for the wildfires' kind of thing I guess.
Re:I dunno (Score:5, Informative)
Truth. Canadians have easy access to this info. In addition the British Columbia Wildfire Service [gov.bc.ca] has detailed information if required, but the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is definitely a good source, and widely available online, by AM and FM radio, and TV. Similarly, the Northwest Territories has detailed information [gov.nt.ca] and CBC. In fact all provinces and territories have excellent online resources. I agree that people who only know how to use social media to get this kind of information dilute the gene pool too much.
Don't even need a Phone (Score:3)
Re:I dunno (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, if you want private companies to make public service announcements, you should not pass laws that require them to pay while doing so. The law, overall, is ill conceived but, at the very least, should have allowed for exceptions in times where its citizens have a critical need for up to date news coverage.
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Haha. If you look at who the people relying on facebook are, you will discover they have already had kids or are too old to have them, so, no effect on gene pool. However, after they burn up, costs for the services they enjoy will be decreased.
Or here's an idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's an idea that will get you much more traction: tell people to stop getting "news" from Facebook.
Re:Or here's an idea... (Score:5, Funny)
Whoa, what are you from 30 years ago or something? You can't use common sense in this day and age! It's 2023!
Not this government (Score:2)
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Funny, the emergency alert system lets my phone know there is a tornado coming my way WELL before some random dumbass on facebook lets me know.
Sounds to me like Canada just needs to upgrade their emergency alert systems so it's actually useful. But I suppose it's cheaper to try and shovel that price tag off on facebook too.
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Re: Or here's an idea... (Score:2)
Dude...unless you turn those alerts off, your phone will notify you with plenty of time to spare. That system was designed and mandated for US users where nobody assumes that you live on social media, but as with many other things, the wildlings got it as basically a hand-me-down, so they can still get emergency alerts from their igloos despite their own laws working against their own assumption that everybody will just be on social media anyways.
Re:Or here's an idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
Or a better idea, stop telling people what to do at all and instead communicate in ways that help each people using their chosen method rather than whatever fits your personal ideology.
Unintended but totally predictable consequences (Score:5, Interesting)
Canada attempted to extort money from Facebook.
Facebook denied it.
Canada is crying because in the course of avoiding their extortion attempt, Facebook cut off important news to Canadian users.
Get fucked Trudeau. You caused this!
LK
Re:Unintended but totally predictable consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as an adult Canadian, I can confirm that what Lord Kano says is absolutely TRUE. The idiocy of the current JustInept Tru-D'oh! "LPC" government is clear:
The fact is that most "news organizations" benefit in one important way from the platforms built by Meta and Google, in that platforms (currently) directly and indirectly provide exposure to those news organizations by allowing posts of links to those news sites by their customers or by third party or platform-provided news aggregators. So in this way, the benefit of the platforms to the news organizations is positive and it makes no sense to "charge" the platform for posting news links. Indeed, there are multiple "news organizations" that have stated they will go under if the platforms start blocking the posting of their links.
The problem is that there IS an area where the platforms have caused severe cash flow problems for the news organizations, and that area is advertising. Advertisers see little benefit in paying news organizations for posting ads when the platforms can provide them with much better exposure for their ads. Historically, the news organizations have been funded by their advertising, and the new reality is that particular financial model no longer works for them. Revenue from advertising has dried up and the platforms are happily eating the news organizations' lunches.
So, just like a buggy whip company demanding government assistance when everybody drives cars, the news organizations are desperate to find a new revenue source. Somehow the LPC government has decided that they can go after the platforms on behalf of the news organizations in exchange for positive coverage from those news organizations. (Oops, was I not supposed to say that part out loud?) The only reason we're hearing whining from the LPC talking heads about "stealing" and "paying their fair share" is because the LPC has learned that if you tell a lie loud enough and often enough, it eventually starts to be believed.
What's happened here is that the strategy to shake down the platforms for money has failed as they are not willing to play ball. Now the LPC government looks like the incompetent grifters they are, as the platforms simply (and rightly!) refuse to pay the extortion fees.
Bottom line is that the news organizations need to understand that the old business model is gone and is not coming back, and trying to lobby the government to keep them afloat is reprehensible and will never work.
It's really sad.
Re: Unintended but totally predictable consequence (Score:5, Interesting)
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Correct. What you left out is that the current fracas is not about getting out emergency information, but rather the govt thinks they have found a new lever to force fb to its will. This has nothing to do with news, and everything to do with power and subjugation.
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So no one should pay for news
No... Typically online the news is Ad-Supported, and provided from media websites for free. It's not that which Facebook minds -- they won't accept being asked to pay a price for providing users web links to news providers' news articles out of their own pockets.
Re:Unintended but totally predictable consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
Step back for a moment, set aside your hatred for Zuckerberg, and look at what the law really entails and implies. Basically, if the standard to which Canada wants to hold Facebook were to apply equally and universally; if I were to post a link to this new article [cbsnews.com] in my comment here; then Slashdot would owe CBS money because of that link that I posted in my comment. That's just fucking stupid. I don't know that it could properly be called "extortion" per se. But it's still way out of line.
Re:Unintended but totally predictable consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not extortion. It's an inconvenience to Meta and they decided not to participate. Their total right.
With your analogy, Facebook decided to leave the paper at the news stand. And now the Canadian government is crying Meta isn't buying the paper!!
(who the heck still buys a paper?)
Exactly (Score:5, Informative)
www.michaelgeist.ca/blog/
"Blocking of news links on Facebook and Instagram in Canada has becomes increasingly widespread in recent days, leading to a growing number of public comments from media outlets and reporters expressing surprise or shock about the scope of the link blocking. Indeed, outlets with blocked links include university student newspapers, radio stations, and foreign news outlets. While there may have been some errors (Facebook has a page to seek review of any blocked link decision), the inclusion of a very wide range of Canadian and foreign news outlets is no accident. Rather, it reflects the government’s Bill C-18 approach, which effectively covers all news outlets worldwide whose links are accessed in Canada."
Canada Should Revoke their law. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Law of Unintended Consequences. Passing laws that have scopes that shortsighted legislators don't think about. All of this was predicted, just not the exact circumstances. I'm glad Facebook has stuck with this policy.
Re: Canada Should Revoke their law. (Score:4, Insightful)
This was the intended consequence.
Charge big companies for sharing links, big companies stop sharing links, government gives billions in handouts to friendly media, while starving unfriendly media of revenue and views.
No one can predict unintended consequences (Score:3)
Re:No one can predict unintended consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are relying on Facebook for anything (Score:3)
You are doing it wrong.
Things we learned today (Score:3)
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. People have become lazy. Sites that claimed Facebook was taking away their revenue are either not that attractive or are just mostly irrelevant. Traditional media is dead. Facebook is still bad. Terrance and Phillip were right all alone when they sung their song Blame Canada.
If you're going to consider FB as a public utility (Score:2)
For one, they aren't. They're a private corporation. For two, if you want to use them as a public utility, then don't try to extort money from them.
Repeal (Score:4, Interesting)
Or Parliament can repeal the law before somebody dies.
Their choice. How much dirt does CBC have on them?
Ecoute Pascale! (Score:2)
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You pass idiotic laws knowing that Meta, et al. are going to stop allowing news content on their sites then you don't get to whine about it. Talk about a Marie-Antoinette moment!
"Let them eat Facebook!"
canadough (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't ironic that the Canadian Government which uses its news agencies as propaganda arms, want facebook to pay them for the privilege of carrying their propaganda, and now force facebook to pay them for being forced to carry their propaganda.
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Re:canadough (Score:5, Insightful)
Your error is in thinking propaganda must be untrue.
"Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented."
So selectively selected true facts can be propaganda, especially those intended to appeal to emotion. For instance the constant fear porn that makes up nearly all broadcast news, because after all, fear drives ad revenue.
Re:canadough (Score:4, Informative)
I didn't say it had to be untrue. Read again.
For it to be propaganda it must either be untrue or all other opposing media must be completely blocked.
Petard... hoisted by ones own.
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For it to be propaganda it must either be untrue or all other opposing media must be completely blocked.
No.
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Isn't it ironic
Alright Alanis. We get it.
You mean their decision not to pay you? (Score:3)
They don't want to pay to carry the news. You demanded they pay for it, so they said we'll remove it then to be in compliance with you, then you throw a fit because they're not letting you share news? You mean you're throwing a fit because you can't force them to pay you for something they're not interested in paying for.
You got what you deserved. I know, the big R word of doom, Responsibility! With the A word of doom! Accountability. You are accountable and responsible for the consequences of your choices, like trying to force facebook to pay to carry your news.
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Funny part is the media companies got a nice thing called Fair Dealing in the copyright act that they can use someone else's photos that relate to a news event with out having to compensate them for it and just have to give a simple copy right notice credit.
Canada has Wireless Public Alerting (WPA) (Score:2)
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>"Do they need more than the ability to force a message onto every single cell phone? "
They shouldn't have the ability to do that, either. It is already horribly abused and annoying as hell. Thankfully my mobile phone has an OFF setting for those, without rooting it. And that is exactly what I used after the Nth false weather warning, stupid "elderly" or "amber" alert when I was inside all day, and several other useless nonsense interruptions to my life/sleep/whatever for no valid reason.
Now my local
Pretty Ballsy (Score:3)
Meta is a shitshow, morale approaching 0 (Score:2)
FOFO (Score:3)
Actions have their consequences, and yes, this includes government actions as well.
And they are now in the "finding out" portion of it. They made a decision to ask for money for sharing news, and Facebook decided not to pay. What did they think? Things stay exactly the same, except for the paying part? Nope, this is a very well known phenomenon, and happened many times in the past. (Look up why US lost its yacht building business ~30 years, ago, and never actually gained it back).
The Canadian government can always suspend, or completely remove the rule. But they choose to double down, and cry in the public, trying to build sympathy. They should get none. They have built their bed, and now have to sleep in it.
Poor Canadians only have FB & IG for news (Score:2)
I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that (Score:3)
You created a law that said I must not.
Um, what? (Score:2)
Some people fleeing wildfires in the remote northern town of Yellowknife have complained to domestic media that the ban prevented them from sharing important data about the fires
So ... they can't use email? Phone calls? WTH?
Meta is irresponsible because of C-18? (Score:2)
If Canada wants Meta and other social media platforms to share the news, then repeal C-18. The guiding principle of C-18 is that social networks were stealing profit from news agencies, since C-18 went into effect, how big a turn around have news agencies seen to their button line? 10%
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Re: That is not how you get a corporation to liste (Score:5, Insightful)
No one would use that, assuming it was even usable in the first place
The Chinese WeChat system disagrees with your statement.
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ouch.
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WeChat was not built by the government, and it's certainly not something any government would have been able to build. That's a private entity thing owned by a private entity that works with the government (and by works with... it means provides whatever monitoring and censorship the government requires of them).
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This does mean you have to actually put
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Oh man, wait until you hear about the CRA.
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You do this or the gov't makes it's own Facebook, and every Canadian citizen gets an account
It would be an empty threat. You and I should both know that this is an undertaking the government wouldn't be capable of doing -- typically they barely run their own website.
Remember the fiasco that was the ACA marketplace website launch? They spent close to $1 Billion on consulting just to make that, and it barely worked - and something like what they did wouldn't scale to the level necessary to run a social
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Actually it's already in place.. https://lemmy.ca/ [lemmy.ca] (or other instances, but this one happens to be hosted in Canada).
There are a ton of regional communities on there, from nationwide to provincial to municipal feeds. The fire coverage has been really good there.
There are nice Android and iOS clients as well, making it as easy to use as FB or reddit. (I like Jerboa, myself, on Android).
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The EU and the UK are pursuing the antitrust line, and threatening to break up Facebook/Meta. Canada should see if we can join in.
Re:Extortion? Nope. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, FaceFuck did decide they are an Irish company (to avoid US taxes), so let the EU tear them apart... not our problem.
Re:Extortion? Nope. (Score:5, Interesting)
I have zero love for facebook, but facebook didn't convince them, news outlets thought they could use facebook to get more attention for themselves. It didn't work, it's called business. It was a poor choice.
You can't' force people to watch the news, to watch your ads, or use your products, and that's what they're screaming about. People didn't care enough about the news to visit their news website, but the news could get impressions from facebook, and they're like, SEE! They want to see our stuff!
When it's not true.
Like when website refuse to work without taking of adblockers. Many of them have found their content isn't valued enough and people just go somewhere else.
There is a big difference between being able to throw something in front of them to kill time, versus getting them to put in effort for something to pay money or watch content they don't want to watch like ads.
All that's happening is delusional people thinking people that just come across their stuff or willing to kill time watching it for free are somehow ripe customers just waiting to be charged or profited in some way like an ad, and then when it doesn't work they throw a temper-tantrum like a 4 year old.
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The point is: Facebook abused its monopoly power to kill off all local competition in the online advertising space.
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Well I can't disagree with that. I just don't think it means facebook must carry their content and pay for it.
I'm also fine if facebook went away, I don't think we benefit as a society from it. I also don't really care for online advertising either, I'm fine if that also died.
I only want advertisements of the products and features I'm looking for at the time, not for them to try and use tactics to manipulating me into buying something I don't actually need or really want.
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Thing is though, Facebook is so huge they basically get to call the shots or at least it's a massive risk for companies to ignore them, which is a clear anti trust problem.
Second, function, independent news organizations are crucial for a working democracy. Letting independent news get destroyed as "just business" is bad as letting companies buy laws which is also "just business".
Both of those are within scope for the government to act on.
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What is wrong with people!! Make a better Meta or Google, or whatever. If there is a good model, and people such as yourself are a market, a product will appear. Heck, if this is such a up in arms deal why hasn't one appears already?
Break up Meta? Google? Keep going, and you won't have to worry about it. Canadian courts? What you'll find is they will just block your country and you won't have any of it. Sometime you might just get what you ask for. Wonder how well you would deal without either of
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What part of "abuse of monopoly position" is hard to understand?
If Facebook did block Canada, that would be fantastic, because then it would not be able to abuse its monopoly position here and competitors would be able to survive.
I agree it's not much of a contest. A corporation is going up against the will of a democratically-elected government. The corporation must not be allowed to win.
Re: Extortion? Nope. (Score:5, Interesting)
You act like Meta has no choice but to pay the Canadian government to serve Canadian customers - why would Meta do that?
Meta can easily block every single Canadian user based on ISP and or IP address, and avoid paying Canada for the privilege of serving Canadian customers.
The math isn't hard - take the estimated revenue canadian users generate, subtract the cost to serve Canadian customers, then subtract the fees the Canadian government wants, and that tells you the profit Meta could make.
The issue isn't Canada, it's the precedent Canada would set and that other countries would follow suits demand payments from Meta as well.
Meta can get along fine without Canada, but apparently Canada needs Meta as part of its national alert system (I guess) - can't wait to see which side will cave in (my money is on Canada giving-in)...
Re: Extortion? Nope. (Score:2)
Hitler loved dogs. /godwin
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The Freedom Convoy was the voice of the people in all its glory and Trudeau managed to poison even that in the minds of many, probably 40%.
Re: Fuck off Canada (Score:3, Informative)
In Hawaii, it's faulty power lines/infrastructure.
In California it's faulty lines/infrastructure.
In Canada it's because, well, it's because they always have wildfires (they have a wildfire season, donchaknow!)
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I guess for these folks... Facebook is the "internet".
Maybe someone should publish a new "internet" app that looks like the Facebook app and sell that?