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Speaker 1: Facebook does not care about you, does not care about

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Speaker 1: anyone who uses the service. It only cares about it's

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Speaker 1: bottom line.

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Speaker 2: There are no Girls on the Internet. As a production

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Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridge Tad and this

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Speaker 2: is there are no Girls on the Internet. It's been

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Speaker 2: a deadly summer of historic wildfires in Canada. This year's

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Speaker 2: wildfire season has seen the most areas burned in Canada's

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Speaker 2: recorded history. And you'd think that during an emergency like

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Speaker 2: deadly wildfires, people would be able to turn to social

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Speaker 2: media platforms to stay informed on critical information. After all,

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Speaker 2: one in four Canadians get their news from social media. However,

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Speaker 2: that is not the case, because when you go to

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Speaker 2: a news outlets Facebook or Instagram page, or try to

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Speaker 2: share a link about evacuations right now, it's all blanked out.

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Speaker 2: That's because Facebook has pulled news content in Canada, an

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Speaker 2: objection to the Online News Act, which would require social

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Speaker 2: media platforms to pay news outlets.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 3: This is a move.

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Speaker 2: Grounded in stunning cruelty and abdication of responsibility at a

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Speaker 2: time of crisis, and it really shows exactly what companies

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Speaker 2: like Facebook think of the people who use their platforms

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Speaker 2: that make them rich. Indigenous communities in Canada have been

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Speaker 2: the most deeply impacted by the wildfires. The Union of

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Speaker 2: British Columbian Indian Chiefs has called on Facebook to lift

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Speaker 2: its ban on sharing local news as wildfires rage. Because

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Speaker 2: folks in smaller communities are dependent on social media to

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Speaker 2: get critical news updates. Grand Chief Stuart Phillips said social

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Speaker 2: media has become a community organizing tool that has relied

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Speaker 2: upon easy infrastructure for sharing news. We don't know the

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Speaker 2: long lasting effect yet, but we already know that not

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Speaker 2: being able to share news has communities disoriented and puts

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Speaker 2: lives at risk. Government emergency websites and text notification warnings

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Speaker 2: just don't have the same reach and up to date

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Speaker 2: information as social media does, and he's right. People have

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Speaker 2: been trying to sort out workarounds like taking screenshots of

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Speaker 2: images from news articles about evacuation and wildfire spread to

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Speaker 2: post those on Facebook in an attempt to just try

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Speaker 2: to keep their communities safe and informed. So why is

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Speaker 2: Facebook doing this money? Facebook is putting profit over people's

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Speaker 2: lives and Paris Marx, hosts of the podcast Tech Won't

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Speaker 2: Save Us, An editor of The Disconnect tech newsletter who

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Speaker 2: lives in Montreal says this is not the first time

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Speaker 2: that a tech company has shown just how little it

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Speaker 2: cares about the people.

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Speaker 3: Who use it.

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Speaker 1: It's massive, Like looking at these fires, it's you know,

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Speaker 1: you can't say that like climate change is not happening,

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Speaker 1: and that climate change is not making the natural disasters

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Speaker 1: that Canada is experiencing that many other countries are experiencing,

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Speaker 1: you know, making it worse right, and seeing all of

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Speaker 1: this happen like it started a few months ago when

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Speaker 1: we really early fire season, and then it's kind of

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Speaker 1: been like, you know, usually we might have a lot

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Speaker 1: of fires in British Columbia one year, or might have

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Speaker 1: a lot of fires in Alberta another year. But this

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Speaker 1: year it was kind of like we had a ton

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Speaker 1: of fires in British Columbia, a ton in Alberta, a

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Speaker 1: ton in Quebec, a ton in Ontario, a ton of

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Speaker 1: Nova Scotia. It was just like all over the place.

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Speaker 1: And it's still going right now. Northwest Territories, which is

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Speaker 1: one of the northern territories in Canada, you know, two

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Speaker 1: thirds of the population of that territory has been evacuated

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Speaker 1: because of wildfires. And in British Columbia, Colowna, which is

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Speaker 1: kind of a popular kind of tourist vacation spot and

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Speaker 1: you know, just kind of like a place that's in

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Speaker 1: you know, a nice natural area. Part of it has

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Speaker 1: been evacuated and part of it is under evacuation order.

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Speaker 1: So you know, what we're experiencing with the wildfires this

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Speaker 1: year is just shockingly bad and it is kind of

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Speaker 1: a preview of where things are going and how the

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Speaker 1: effects of climate change. You know, I remember when I

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Speaker 1: was younger, younger is in like, you know, ten or

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Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, there would be like climate deniers and

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Speaker 1: conservative politicians who would say, you know, climate change might

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Speaker 1: be bad, it might be happening, but it's going to

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Speaker 1: be okay for Canada because you know, we're a northern

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Speaker 1: country and you know, we're going to have more arable

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Speaker 1: land as a result, so we're going to be able

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Speaker 1: to feed the world and blah blah blah. You know,

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Speaker 1: people who are in the pocket of the fossil fuel

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Speaker 1: industry and stuff that they never talked about how the

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Speaker 1: wildfires are going to get worse, and how the hurricanes

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Speaker 1: are going to get worse, and how we're going to

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Speaker 1: get more flooding, and so we see all of that

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Speaker 1: and then, as you say, as all of that is

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Speaker 1: happening this summer, we have Meta, which is kind of

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Speaker 1: going to war against the new government regulation that is

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Speaker 1: similar to the regulations that passed in Australia a couple

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Speaker 1: of years ago that would expect you know, Facebook, Instagram

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Speaker 1: and Google to be paying money to news publishers because

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Speaker 1: you know, they have the news on their platforms, they're

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Speaker 1: running ads against that news people don't always click through

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Speaker 1: to read the articles, but are still commenting on them

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Speaker 1: and things like that on these platforms, and so there's

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Speaker 1: a few that you know, we can debate whether that

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Speaker 1: is right or wrong, but that these platforms should be

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Speaker 1: paying a certain degree to support these news publications that

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Speaker 1: are going through a really difficult time right now because

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Speaker 1: this is a public good and these companies have taken

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Speaker 1: all the digital ad dollars that you know, these news

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Speaker 1: companies might have gotten otherwise. Right, So that is all happening,

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Speaker 1: and that has basically meant that because Meta has cut

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Speaker 1: off access to news on its platforms, then you know,

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Speaker 1: all of these emergencies are happening and so people can't

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Speaker 1: share what the news media is writing about all of

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Speaker 1: these natural disasters, about the evacuations that are happening in

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Speaker 1: the Northwest territories. And when Meta is presented with this

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Speaker 1: information and is presented with the fact that people are

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Speaker 1: just taking screenshots of news articles and sharing them on

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Speaker 1: social media because they can't share the article itself to

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Speaker 1: make sure that their friends and family are informed about

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Speaker 1: what's going on, Meta says, well, the government can still

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Speaker 1: post updates, and people on the platform actually report that

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Speaker 1: they're happier now that we have taken news off. And

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Speaker 1: I think the final thing I would say, because I

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Speaker 1: know I've been talking for a little while, is just

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Speaker 1: that you know, Meta is saying all this, Meta is

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Speaker 1: blocking news on its platforms, But the reality is that

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Speaker 1: the law is not even enforced yet. The law is

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Speaker 1: not going to be enforced for another few months. But

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Speaker 1: Meta is still doing this and still won't allow news

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Speaker 1: to go back on the platform, even in this moment

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Speaker 1: where there's a ton of natural disasters happening in the country.

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Speaker 2: So I think that last point is really key. The

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Speaker 2: law that Facebook objects to is not even an effect

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Speaker 2: or being enforced right now, so Facebook could continue allowing

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Speaker 2: news on their platforms, especially given that that we're in

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Speaker 2: this emergency situation in Canada but they aren't. So it

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Speaker 2: just feels to me like Facebook is putting profit and

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Speaker 2: power and like dick swinging for lack of a better word,

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Speaker 2: over people's actual safety and lives, the lives.

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Speaker 3: Of their users.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know, it's undeniable, and they've done that many times.

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Speaker 1: Let's be clear, this is not a new thing. You know,

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Speaker 1: if you think back to the genocides and memr if

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Speaker 1: you think about all the revelations about you know, what

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Speaker 1: they've been doing around the world, and how sure they

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Speaker 1: might be interested in content moderation in places like the

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Speaker 1: United States or Canada or the UK or whatever, where

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Speaker 1: they have a lot of users and where the media

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Speaker 1: is really paying attention if something goes wrong, but in

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Speaker 1: many other parts of the world, they really don't care

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Speaker 1: nearly as much. And there's a lot of kind of

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Speaker 1: human tragedy that results from the fact that Facebook does

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Speaker 1: not really care about what happens on its platform. And

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Speaker 1: so what we're seeing right now, as you say, is

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Speaker 1: that this law is not actually enforce So if Meta

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Speaker 1: did allow news on its platform right now, it wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have to pay news publishers because the government is not

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Speaker 1: actually requiring this to happen. And I think that one

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Speaker 1: of the really notable things is that in the Australian case,

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Speaker 1: Meta did pull news off of Facebook because it was

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Speaker 1: going to be required to pay, and that didn't take

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Speaker 1: very long for Meta to reverse course and to start

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Speaker 1: working through this government process to make these deals with

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Speaker 1: the news publishers and to abide by the law. But

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Speaker 1: in this case, a couple of years later, Meta is

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Speaker 1: really not willing to do that in the way that

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Speaker 1: it was before. And I think that part of that

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Speaker 1: is because Meta's kind of view on news and view

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Speaker 1: of how its platform should work has shifted over that time.

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Speaker 1: I think that, you know, two years ago or whatever,

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Speaker 1: there was a much greater argument that maybe news was

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Speaker 1: something that Meta needed to have on its platforms to

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Speaker 1: keep people engaged and to keep people interested. But I

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Speaker 1: think now we've arrived at a point where Meta sees

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Speaker 1: news as more of a liability that can kind of

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Speaker 1: get people engaged in conversations and things like that that

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Speaker 1: are more extreme or for whatever reason, kind of result

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Speaker 1: in these discussions that it doesn't like on the platform.

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Speaker 1: And it also feels that it doesn't make enough money

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Speaker 1: to justify having that on the platform. So, as I said,

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Speaker 1: one of the things that's saying now that it's taken

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Speaker 1: news off in Canada is that it says that users

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Speaker 1: are actually happier not having news on the platform. And

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Speaker 1: this is not just about Canada, but about saying to

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Speaker 1: all the other jurisdictions that are looking at Canada and

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Speaker 1: trying to think about following suit with their own version

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Speaker 1: of this, places like California, New Zealand and other places

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Speaker 1: around the world, that don't you dare try this, because

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Speaker 1: we'll do the same thing in your jurisdiction too.

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Speaker 2: There was a time that when you logged into Facebook,

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Speaker 2: the thing that you scrolled was called the news feed,

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Speaker 2: and it was full of news. But in twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 2: social media platforms were increasingly scrutinized for a failure to

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Speaker 2: keep misleading and an accurate news off of their platforms.

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Speaker 2: Two years later, Facebook changed its algorithm and announced that

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Speaker 2: we'd see twenty percent less news prioritize againstead content from

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Speaker 2: your friends and family. This move hurt news publishers, who

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Speaker 2: up until then had been getting about ten percent of

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Speaker 2: their traffic from Facebook alone had been jumping through hoops

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Speaker 2: that Facebook set, like the infamous pivot to video that

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Speaker 2: ended up being based on Facebook artificially inflating video metrics

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Speaker 2: to make newsrooms think that all of us really wanted

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Speaker 2: to be watching video instead of reading text. Newsrooms had

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Speaker 2: built up and staffed entire strategies around what ultimately ended

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Speaker 2: up being a lie. In twenty nineteen, Facebook brought on

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Speaker 2: former CNN news anchor Campbell Brown to head up news

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Speaker 2: partnerships and start a dedicated newstab that the company said

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Speaker 2: would be curated by journalists, but according to a report

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Speaker 2: from The Australian, one of Campbell Brown's first orders of

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Speaker 2: business was gathering news publishers in a meeting where she

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Speaker 2: allegedly told them that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't care

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Speaker 2: about news and didn't want to rehash any of how

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Speaker 2: Facebook had wrecked all of their strategies, and that if

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Speaker 2: their outlets didn't partner with Facebook they would quote die

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Speaker 2: in hospice. So the outlets did, and Facebook started paying

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Speaker 2: news outlets. According to a report from Facebook spent one

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Speaker 2: hundred and five million dollars in three year content deals

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Speaker 2: for news, plus another ninety million for news videos, including

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Speaker 2: ten million for The Wall Street Journal, twenty million for

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Speaker 2: The New York Times, and three million for CNN. Today,

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Speaker 2: Facebook seems to see news as more trouble than it's worth.

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Speaker 2: They stopped paying news publishers last summer. And it's not

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Speaker 2: just Facebook. Elon Musk has floated removing headlines from news

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Speaker 2: articles shared on Twitter, a move that would surely make

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Speaker 2: the platform less friendly to news. This is yet another

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Speaker 2: example of the rocky and sometimes opaque relationship that news

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Speaker 2: publishers have had with social media platforms, where news outlets

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Speaker 2: are ostensibly meant to be writing truthfully about these platforms,

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Speaker 2: but also depend on those platforms for traffic and reach.

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Speaker 2: What do you think caused that shift where Facebook was like, actually,

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Speaker 2: maybe we don't want to be in the news game,

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Speaker 2: because I know that there was a time, at least

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Speaker 2: in the United States where Facebook was prioritizing news in

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Speaker 2: their feats. It was like you're going to see news.

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Speaker 2: You're going to see less like your friends and family

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Speaker 2: and like cat pictures or whatever, and more news. Do

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Speaker 2: you have any sense of what caused that shift?

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Speaker 1: There's just been a general kind of shift in the

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Speaker 1: past few years where meta has been facing kind of

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Speaker 1: the backlash of having news on its platforms. There was

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Speaker 1: decisions around news much more often than it did in

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Speaker 1: the past. So when it came to like COVID misinformation,

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Speaker 1: it had to put out a policy on that and

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Speaker 1: make a decision around what it was going to do,

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Speaker 1: and that kind of still pissed everyone off. Right. Liberals

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Speaker 1: were still angry with it because things were still getting through.

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Speaker 1: Conservatives were angry because all of a sudden, they're kind

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Speaker 1: of vaccine skeptic stuff and anti vax stuff was getting

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Speaker 1: caught up in it, right, And then you look at

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Speaker 1: Trump and you know, what are they doing with Trump?

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Speaker 1: Are they going to allow him on or not? And

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Speaker 1: there was recent reporting from the Washington Post that after

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk took over Twitter, Meta was actually moving forward

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Speaker 1: with a ban on political advertising, I believe, and decided

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Speaker 1: to not move forward with that because you know, the

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Speaker 1: decisions that Musk made around quote unquote free speech and

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Speaker 1: allowing right wing commentary onto the platform with something that

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Speaker 1: has now affected other platforms as well, and their decisions

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Speaker 1: around how content is going to work. So that's not

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Speaker 1: a full answer to what you're saying, but I think

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Speaker 1: that it just sees news as not something that's essential

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Speaker 1: to what it's doing anymore, and that there are other

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Speaker 1: ways to get people engaged and get people looking at

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Speaker 1: ads where it doesn't need that sort of content.

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Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break at our back as Canada

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Speaker 2: burns from wildfires. Here in the States, California is also

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Speaker 2: experiencing extreme weather like storms, droughts, and bloods, and similarly,

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Speaker 2: in California, the California Journalism Preservation Act would have require

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Speaker 2: tech platforms like Facebook and Instagram to give a cut

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Speaker 2: up to seventy percent of revenue made on advertising news

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Speaker 2: content to local newsrooms. Both Facebook and Google have threatened

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Speaker 2: a pulled news content in California if that legislation is passed.

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Speaker 2: In Australia, after Facebook did temporarily remove news content back

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, eventually Facebook and Google caved and

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Speaker 2: worked out deals to pay news publishers. Bill Gruskin, a

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Speaker 2: professor at Columbia University School of Journalism who has studied

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Speaker 2: the Australia law, says that it generated nearly one hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty million dollars for news organizations and that the

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Speaker 2: Australian Broadcasting Corporation was able to hire fifty new journalists

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Speaker 2: in underserved parts of the country because of that law. Now,

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Speaker 2: to be clear, I don't necessarily think that deals like

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Speaker 2: these are going to save journalism. It's much more complicated

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Speaker 2: than that. But I do think the people who run

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Speaker 2: big tech platforms, who have made so much money from news,

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Speaker 2: should be invested in supporting a healthy journalistic landscape. I

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Speaker 2: do think that what we're seeing now is Facebook trying

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Speaker 2: to really send a signal to other countries, like the

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Speaker 2: similar legislation in California. I think this is meant to

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Speaker 2: really be a signal globally, like, do not tell us

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Speaker 2: that we have to pay you, we'll pull out so

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Speaker 2: fast and you don't want that. Like, I think they're

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Speaker 2: just trying to grandstand a little bit and sort of flex.

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Speaker 1: A little bit absolutely, and they can flex, right, because

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Speaker 1: let's be real that a lot of our governments have

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Speaker 1: become very reliant on Facebook and these other social media

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Speaker 1: platforms in order to communicate with their citizens, their residents,

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Speaker 1: what have you, right, the people who they want to

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Speaker 1: communicate with, and that means that they don't always have

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Speaker 1: the channels to reach people directly. Because there has been

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Speaker 1: a viewer or an acceptance that the way that we

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Speaker 1: are going to communicate with people is through these social

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Speaker 1: media platforms and that has just been kind of accepted

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Speaker 1: for the past decade or so, right, and the media

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Speaker 1: is in that camp as well, where the media, you know,

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Speaker 1: certainly there's been like a shift to newsletters in the

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Speaker 1: past few years and stuff like that, but in general,

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Speaker 1: the media still reaches people through social media, or at

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Speaker 1: least reaches a lot of people that way. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's overstated how much traffic Twitter sends to media websites,

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Speaker 1: but it is the case that Facebook still sends or

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Speaker 1: you know, has traditionally still sent a lot of traffic

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Speaker 1: to news and they have depended on that traffic. And

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Speaker 1: so I don't think the reality is that they can't

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Speaker 1: switch away from that, but that it will be an

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Speaker 1: adjustment and there will be kind of a difficult period

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Speaker 1: if everything just gets turned off and government and media

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Speaker 1: were not kind of preparing for that having to happen

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Speaker 1: and haven't set up alternatives ahead of time. One of

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Speaker 1: the things that we did see in Australia, and again

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Speaker 1: like we didn't have a ton of time to actually

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Speaker 1: judge the long term impacts but that when news was

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Speaker 1: removed from Facebook, these like these publishers were able to adjust,

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Speaker 1: and I believe it was I can't remember it was

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Speaker 1: Australia or Spain, actually sorry, because Spain had a similar

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Speaker 1: thing that they did as well, and Google News had

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Speaker 1: blocked like News in Spain for a while and publishers

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Speaker 1: did kind of you know, we're able to make up

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Speaker 1: the difference there. So I think that that's just to say.

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Speaker 1: I think that there are examples where you know, these

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Speaker 1: publishers and the governments can and their reliance on these

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Speaker 1: social media platforms and don't need to be so reliant

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Speaker 1: on them. But that takes real work and you know,

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Speaker 1: a real commitment to do that, and I haven't really

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Speaker 1: seen that commitment kind of in practice in the past

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Speaker 1: few years. And it seems rather that they would prefer

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Speaker 1: to continue to be reliant on these platforms but also

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Speaker 1: have them kind of abide by these regulations. And theoretically

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Speaker 1: these companies should be abiding by regulations. If a sovereign

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Speaker 1: government decides that Facebook or Google or whatever should be

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Speaker 1: abiding by certain regulations in their country, I think it's

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Speaker 1: fair to say that, yeah, they should probably be doing that,

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Speaker 1: because I you know, especially in a democratic country like

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Speaker 1: the ones that we live in, I think we would

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Speaker 1: expect that the government, which is ultimately the representative of

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Speaker 1: the public, should be having the final say, not some

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Speaker 1: major corporation that's led basically dictatorially by Mark Zuckerberg, like

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Speaker 1: news media.

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Speaker 2: Governments have had a complicated relationship with social media platforms

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Speaker 2: because governments need social media to be able to communicate

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Speaker 2: with people, but governments are also ostensibly meant to be

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Speaker 2: regulating these platforms and keeping them from harming us. And

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Speaker 2: when emergencies like Canada's wildfires happen, like it or not,

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Speaker 2: a lot of people are getting critical information from social media,

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Speaker 2: and it reveals this problem of what happens when social

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Speaker 2: media platforms, in the whims of the tech billionaires who

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Speaker 2: run them, become such a big part of the infrastructure

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Speaker 2: of modern society. In a recent piece for The New Yorker,

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Speaker 2: Ronan Pharaoh makes clear just how much of the infrastructure

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Speaker 2: of public and civic life is being left up to

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Speaker 2: the whims of individual tech leaders like El Writing in

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Speaker 2: the past twenty years against a backdrop of crumbling infrastructure

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Speaker 2: and declining trust and institutions, must have sought out business

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Speaker 2: opportunities in crucial areas where after decades of privatization, the

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Speaker 2: state has receded. The government is now reliant on him,

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Speaker 2: but struggles to respond to his risk taking, brinksmanship and caprice.

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Speaker 2: I really feel like this is a parable of what

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Speaker 2: happens when governments become so reliant on privately owned social

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Speaker 2: media platforms and platforms that are run by people who

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Speaker 2: have made it clear time and time again they don't

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Speaker 2: really care about people, They don't really care about anything

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Speaker 2: other than profit and power. What happens when governments become

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Speaker 2: so reliant on those platforms to inform their citizenry, especially

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Speaker 2: during times of emergency or harm.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, and like it's not just platforms, right, Like we

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Speaker 1: see it with Google and Facebook, et cetera. And we've

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Speaker 1: seen it with Twitter to a certain new where some

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Speaker 1: media companies were leaving the platform after Elon Musk took

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Speaker 1: over and started really kind of going after certain media

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Speaker 1: companies like the CBC in Canada and they decided not

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Speaker 1: to post on the platform for a while. And certainly

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Speaker 1: there have been other examples of that, but you know,

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Speaker 1: more recently, we've seen reporting in the New York Times

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Speaker 1: and the New Yorker about the power that Elon Musk

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Speaker 1: wields through Starlink and through his ownership of SpaceX, and

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Speaker 1: through the ownership of the largest public charging or you know,

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Speaker 1: the largest electric vehicle charging network in the United States,

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Speaker 1: and these things were really downplayed, I think for a

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Speaker 1: long time the fact that Elon Musk was basically controlling

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Speaker 1: the US rocket launch infrastructure and has really taken control

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Speaker 1: of that and is kind of the primary means that

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Speaker 1: the United States and many other countries get things into

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Speaker 1: space now because of SpaceX rockets. He also controls, you know,

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Speaker 1: what is at almost half of the satellites that are

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Speaker 1: active in orbit right now, which is just crazy to

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Speaker 1: even think about, like that one person or one company

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Speaker 1: controls that much of what is in outer space and

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Speaker 1: has basically been given carte blanche to continue launching more

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Speaker 1: satellites by US regulators. And then, of course, on top

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Speaker 1: of that, you know, as we're making this transition to

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Speaker 1: electric vehicles, and again we can debate whether that's the

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Speaker 1: best way to be doing it or whatever. He owns

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Speaker 1: the major charging network through his superchargers that he has

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Speaker 1: been allowed to build out in a way that's like

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Speaker 1: very different from how automakers can't really own gas stations

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Speaker 1: or don't traditionally own gas stations. And now we're seeing

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Speaker 1: that after the other automakers tried to collaborate on their

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Speaker 1: own charging standard that was separate from Tesla's because Tesla

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Speaker 1: has a proprietary standard, that many of these automakers in

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Speaker 1: the United States are just adopting Tesla's standard because you know,

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Speaker 1: Elon must controls so many chargers already and it's really

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Speaker 1: difficult for them to catch up.

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Speaker 2: You had that piece that was called something like Elon

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Speaker 2: Musks should not be put in charge of the night sky.

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Speaker 2: People think like just thinking about and I think in

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Speaker 2: the Ronan therapy so often Rodan Pharaoh's reporting is like,

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Speaker 2: this guy is a bad guy. Let me show you

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Speaker 2: all the things that he's done. But in that piece

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Speaker 2: on Elon Musk, what I really took away from it

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Speaker 2: was exactly what you said was that it's not just

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Speaker 2: that Elon Musk is a bad guy.

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Speaker 1: It's that we have given we have.

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Speaker 2: Such little infrastructure that having one bad guy who is

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Speaker 2: not great at decision making be in charge of it,

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Speaker 2: that's not really just on him. It's the it's on

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Speaker 2: our governments to allow that to be the standard.

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Speaker 1: Oh totally. Like it's a complete failure of government right

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Speaker 1: to allow this to happen. And like it's not like

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Speaker 1: they stood back and this just happened and they didn't

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Speaker 1: notice it. Like they actively encouraged Elon Musk to amass

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Speaker 1: this much power. You know, the media was involved in

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Speaker 1: that as well. There were many other kind of you know,

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Speaker 1: players who helped to kind of build Elon Musk into

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Speaker 1: the figure that he is. But you know, the United

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Speaker 1: States made an explicit decision to move forward with the

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Speaker 1: privatization of the space program and to de emphasize NASA's

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Speaker 1: role within that because it was building a new rocket

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Speaker 1: and the George W. Bush administration stopped it, and the

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Speaker 1: Obama administration continued the move toward or excuse me, the

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Speaker 1: George W. Bush administration ended the Space Shuttle program or

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Speaker 1: set a date for it to end. The Obama administration

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Speaker 1: ended the work that NASA was doing on a new

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Speaker 1: kind of rocket launch capability and instead said we're going

437
00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 1: to rely on the private sector to do this. And

438
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 1: that is part of what allowed this transition to SpaceX

439
00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:43,200
Speaker 1: and to reliance on Elon Musk to happen. Then, of course,

440
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 1: regulators allowed him to put all those satellites in the sky,

441
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:50,720
Speaker 1: you know, American regulators deciding that an American company can

442
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:53,160
Speaker 1: put all of these satellites up that are effectively going

443
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: to block a lot of other countries from doing something

444
00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 1: similar instead of like an international body having to approve

445
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 1: something like this. And then on top of all that,

446
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:03,920
Speaker 1: of course, you know, all of the investment and kind

447
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 1: of subsidies that he received with Tesla and to build

448
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:09,919
Speaker 1: that out. So we have this really serious problem where

449
00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:12,560
Speaker 1: the government for many decades has been slowly kind of

450
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 1: reducing state capacity, reducing what it does and leaving that

451
00:24:16,280 --> 00:24:18,919
Speaker 1: to the private sector. And that has allowed someone like

452
00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:21,840
Speaker 1: Elon Musk to be in this position of power that

453
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:24,240
Speaker 1: he's in. And of course we talk about Elon Musk,

454
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 1: but like we're talking about with Meta, and like we're

455
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 1: talking about with all these other companies, they have assumed

456
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:32,119
Speaker 1: real positions of power, real kind of bottlenecks around society

457
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 1: and throughout the economy, and that has a lot of

458
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:38,240
Speaker 1: serious impacts on you know, on the wider public.

459
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:41,320
Speaker 2: I mean, that's such a good point that it's really

460
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:43,439
Speaker 2: not like I was interested to talk to you about

461
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 2: Meta and the Canadian news media ecosystem. But it's really

462
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 2: not about the one company Meta or the one company

463
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 2: Twitter or Elon Musk. I wonder, like, do you think

464
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:59,879
Speaker 2: that these US based companies should have such an impact global?

465
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 2: Like what does it say Is it fair that like

466
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:05,920
Speaker 2: the US based company Meta can have such a big

467
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:10,239
Speaker 2: impact on Canada's news media ecosystem.

468
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:15,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I obviously don't. Yeah, yeah, And I feel like

469
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: I can sometimes get criticized for this as well, right,

470
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: because one of the things that I try to point

471
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: out sometimes is that, like, if you're an American and

472
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:27,439
Speaker 1: you're in the United States, maybe it doesn't seem so

473
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: egregious that there are all these large American companies that

474
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:35,879
Speaker 1: have such a significant role in so many countries around

475
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: the world. Amazon, Google, Facebook, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

476
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:44,160
Speaker 1: But when you're not in the United States, it feels

477
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: like you have very little control over your own society

478
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 1: and your own economy and what is going on in it.

479
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:53,600
Speaker 1: When you're always at the whims of these major companies

480
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:57,400
Speaker 1: that are foreign owned and controlled, and when your governments

481
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 1: try to regulate them, like in the case of what

482
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:04,399
Speaker 1: the Canadian government is doing now with Meta and Google.

483
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: They basically fight these regulations tooth and nail and try

484
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: to ensure that they don't have to you know, follow

485
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:14,719
Speaker 1: through on it. And I would argue that this was

486
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 1: you know, if we go back to like the nineties,

487
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 1: when the Internet is being privatized, the message that we

488
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: have is that as the Internet is going global, and

489
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 1: as these companies are going global, it's bringing like democracy

490
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:28,400
Speaker 1: and freedom and economic opportunity to everybody. And I push

491
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: back on that, and I would say, like, we never

492
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 1: really got those things, you know, to a large degree,

493
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:36,959
Speaker 1: but what we did get was the expansion of like

494
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 1: American control and American power through these companies and through

495
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:43,399
Speaker 1: the expansion of internet infrastructure. And this is like the

496
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 1: political economy piece that is often not brought into the

497
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: critiques of like the tech industry and it's kind of

498
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: connections to government, right because it was presenting itself as

499
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: separate from government and like, you know, oppositional to government.

500
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:59,440
Speaker 1: And there are there are ways that that is true,

501
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it's you know, it is

502
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:06,920
Speaker 1: helping to kind of expand the influence of the American

503
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 1: government around the world, and that ensures that once you

504
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:14,199
Speaker 1: have kind of free flows of capital, once you're not

505
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 1: allowed to put kind of protectionist measures on your own economy,

506
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: it's pretty much impossible for you to create effective competitors

507
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:25,679
Speaker 1: to these large American companies that you know, we're able

508
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:29,640
Speaker 1: to corner these markets well before, you know, any kind

509
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:32,679
Speaker 1: of domestic company was able to do anything similar, and

510
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:35,640
Speaker 1: they can never really reach the scale that an American

511
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 1: company can because it starts in such like a large

512
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:41,439
Speaker 1: market to do these sorts of things, right. And so

513
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: part of the reason that we're finally starting to see

514
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: a shift away from you know, the US focus on

515
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 1: you know, deregulation and allowing these tech companies to do

516
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:53,640
Speaker 1: whatever they want is that Chinese tech companies are finally

517
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 1: kind of competing with them and potentially trying to you know,

518
00:27:57,359 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: benefit from this infrastructure that they set up. And now

519
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:04,399
Speaker 1: we see America moving forward with protectionist measures after so

520
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:07,120
Speaker 1: many years of saying no, like everything should be free

521
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 1: and open and whatever, right, but now they want to

522
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:13,400
Speaker 1: stop the Chinese companies from moving into the space that

523
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:16,680
Speaker 1: American tech companies occupy. And so that's part of the

524
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 1: reason why we see these.

525
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 3: Shifts more after a quick break let's get right back

526
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 3: into it.

527
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 2: US run platforms like Facebook, Amazon, and Google have had

528
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 2: such a big hand in shaping the entire world, and increasingly,

529
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 2: I think lawmakers are interested in keeping it that way,

530
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 2: a kind of digital tech enabled colonialism. It's so hard

531
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 2: for me to follow the conversation between lawmakers around TikTok,

532
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 2: where it's just so obvious to me that, like, what

533
00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 2: they actually want is for US owned big tech companies

534
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 2: to be the only game in town. They don't want,

535
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 2: Like they can talk all their talk about data privacy

536
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 2: and national security, but I just it just seems so

537
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 2: obvious to me that what they're actually saying is, like,

538
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 2: we want it to be American companies. It's okay if

539
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 2: if Amazon and Facebook and Google and Twitter are the

540
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:25,479
Speaker 2: ones who are doing it, but we want to make

541
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:28,840
Speaker 2: sure that it's America exactly exactly.

542
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: Like, you know, it's bad if TikTok steals your data

543
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: and content moderates in a way that the American government

544
00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: doesn't like or whatever, But if Facebook is doing it,

545
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: you know, in China or anywhere else around the world,

546
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: it's completely okay or any of these other American companies, right,

547
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 1: Because what's important is the continued dominance of American tech

548
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: companies and ensuring that Chinese tech companies cannot move into

549
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: the American market, but ideally not globally as well, and

550
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,520
Speaker 1: are confined to the Chinese market where, you know, the

551
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 1: Chinese government has successfully put in protectionist measures, again not

552
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 1: just for economic reasons, but also for kind of political reasons, right,

553
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: let's be clear about that. But it also ensured that

554
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 1: they were able to actually build a domestic tech industry

555
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: in a way that many other countries have not been

556
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 1: able to do because their companies were protected from competition

557
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: from foreign American giants that would have just kind of

558
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 1: eaten up their market share and not allowed them to

559
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 1: kind of build up their own domestic capacities.

560
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 2: There's a kind of libertarian attitude that bubbles up in

561
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 2: conversations about social media platforms blocking news in Canada. One

562
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 2: that posits that this is all the Canadian government's fault

563
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 2: and that the government has no place regulating a private

564
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 2: company like Facebook and should have just stayed out of it,

565
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 2: or describing the law that forces social media platforms to

566
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 2: pay for news as a kind of government enforced link tax.

567
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 2: Paris says that these arguments are all rooted in the

568
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 2: idea that tech companies should basically be able to do

569
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 2: whatever the heck they want with no government oversight or consequences.

570
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 1: I think pernicious narrative that's happening in Canada right now,

571
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 1: and it's a good reflection of, you know, kind of

572
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 1: these general narratives that we have around the tech industry

573
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: and critique of the tech industry that we see in

574
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: the United States that are much more kind of libertarian focused,

575
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 1: right that kind of say it's it's illegitimate almost for

576
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 1: the government to try to regulate these tech companies because

577
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 1: you know, there are these longstanding narratives that are associated

578
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 1: with the tech industry that the government is bad and

579
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 1: even though the companies are bad, the companies are not

580
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: as bad as like government, right because government is like

581
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: the ultimate evil. And so I think what we see

582
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: in Canada right now is that there is there are

583
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: different ways to look at these laws that the government

584
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: is trying to enforce against Meta and against Google, and

585
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 1: I'm critical of them because I don't like the idea

586
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: that the news media is going to be tied to

587
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 1: Google and Facebook and have revenue that is coming from them.

588
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: Because I think that creates an incentive not to want

589
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: to hold these companies to account for what they're doing, right,

590
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 1: And it also makes them dependent on foreign companies that

591
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 1: you know, anything could happen to them in the coming years,

592
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: and I think we would want them to kind of

593
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 1: be dismantled to a certain degree, But this creates an

594
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: incentive not to have that happen because you're setting up

595
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 1: this revenue stream. Whereas the other form of critique, and

596
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: the one that I would say is more dominant, is

597
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 1: for people to say, actually, it's bad that the government

598
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 1: is moving into this space at all, is trying to

599
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 1: regulate these foreign tech companies, and is doing so with

600
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 1: and I would say that these are very disingenuous arguments.

601
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 1: With a link tax, right, which is against the fundamental

602
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: nature of the very internet. You can't tax a link

603
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 1: because that's essential to how the Internet works. And I

604
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 1: think ultimately, like you know, you can certainly read the

605
00:32:57,880 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 1: bill in a way where it looks like a link tax,

606
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 1: but I think that the actual goal of what the

607
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 1: government is trying to achieve is not that at all,

608
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 1: and they've been very clear about it. But I think

609
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: that you get these disingenuous arguments that are very beneficial

610
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: to the tech companies, but that are laundered through particular

611
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 1: experts who are at arm's length from the tech companies

612
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: and who would even say that they are critical of

613
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 1: the tech companies, but are ultimately kind of forwarding arguments

614
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: that are in the tech company's favor even though they

615
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 1: act like they are opponents of the tech companies. And

616
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 1: that's why we see that whenever stories about this Canadian

617
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 1: news bill come up, you have a lot of people

618
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: replying to it saying, actually, this is the government's fault,

619
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 1: not meta's fault, that there's no news on these platforms,

620
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 1: and it's like, I'm sorry, but you have taken the

621
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 1: complete wrong message from the criticism of these companies.

622
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 2: So that's something that truthfully has created struggle for me

623
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 2: on how to thoughtfully cover this issue because it does

624
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 2: seem like an issue that it's the government's fault, but

625
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 2: also the tech companies are at fault. It's difficult to

626
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 2: cover it in a way that is thoughtful and tells

627
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,840
Speaker 2: the whole story. Have you found that too, because of

628
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 2: all of these different talking points, the blame being put

629
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,240
Speaker 2: on the government in a way that's laundering the message

630
00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:15,160
Speaker 2: for tech companies, and it makes it kind of difficult

631
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 2: to have a thoughtful conversation about what's actually happening.

632
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 1: I think the difficulty is that we always seem to

633
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: want to try to narrow these things down into like

634
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: very simple narratives that everyone can understand and that like,

635
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:31,560
Speaker 1: you know, there's not much complexity to it. But the

636
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:34,719
Speaker 1: reality is that all of these things are very complex,

637
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:37,440
Speaker 1: right if you actually dig into the details. And so

638
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:39,799
Speaker 1: it's easy just to say, oh, the government is bad,

639
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:43,920
Speaker 1: you know, we shouldn't be doing this, or to say

640
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: the tech companies are bad and we should be setting

641
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: up this framework where they need to support the news

642
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:53,839
Speaker 1: media companies. And let's be clear, like Canadian news media

643
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:57,799
Speaker 1: companies in many cases suck. They're really terrible because of

644
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: like the legacy of just you know, decades of funding

645
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:06,280
Speaker 1: difficulties and mergers. And you know what, our biggest newspaper

646
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 1: chain is owned by a US hedge fund right now,

647
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:11,360
Speaker 1: so you know that they are not actually incentivized to

648
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 1: provide good journalism. It just creates a bunch of right

649
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:16,920
Speaker 1: wing newspapers that like you know, are not really interested

650
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:19,960
Speaker 1: in in providing good journalism to Canadians, not to say

651
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 1: that the journalists working there are are not doing their

652
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 1: best in a really difficult situation, right, And so I

653
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:30,399
Speaker 1: think that it's it's easy to like take those kind

654
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: of perspectives. It's much more difficult to say, listen, there

655
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 1: is a serious problem with news media in Canada. We

656
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 1: do need to address it. It's probably not the best

657
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 1: way to do it to make these news media companies

658
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:46,800
Speaker 1: linked to these tech companies and like create a direct

659
00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:49,719
Speaker 1: stream of revenue from them. But that doesn't mean that

660
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 1: the government is illegitimate in trying to set up some

661
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, way to regulate these companies or

662
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,840
Speaker 1: some way to address what's happening in the news media environment.

663
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 1: It should just be done in a different way so

664
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 1: you're not creating these kind of really bad potential, you know,

665
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 1: incentives as a result of it. And so that's more

666
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 1: difficult to argue because it takes a longer amount of

667
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:15,720
Speaker 1: time than just saying government bad or metabad. I would

668
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 1: be more uh, you know, inclined to say metabad and

669
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 1: then try to expand on why there's more complex But yeah,

670
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: I think you can see how that happens.

671
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 2: Thank God, we are podcasters and like newsletter writers, so

672
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 2: that we have a little more space than like a

673
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 2: tweet to boil this down listen. So I know that

674
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:36,759
Speaker 2: you're not, like I think of tech won save us

675
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 2: and disconnect blog as like very future forward often like

676
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:43,239
Speaker 2: you know, prophetic about what's next. I know you're not

677
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 2: a fortune teller, but what do you think is on

678
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:50,319
Speaker 2: the horizon for Canada? And like what would you like

679
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 2: to see as the future of news and media in

680
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 2: the country.

681
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, so those are two different things, right, Like, I

682
00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: think ultimately what's going to happen is that this framework

683
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 1: is going to be put into place where the tech

684
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 1: companies are going to have to pay the news publishers.

685
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,879
Speaker 1: I think it's entirely possible that Meta keeps news off

686
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:12,360
Speaker 1: of its platforms and just doesn't doesn't engage with this scheme.

687
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:15,920
Speaker 1: I think it's much more likely that Google finds some

688
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 1: form of accommodation with the government so that they do

689
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 1: still make agreements with the news publishers and pay them

690
00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 1: some degree of money to still have news on its platform,

691
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 1: because I think news is still more important to the

692
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 1: Google Search engine and the Google News product than news

693
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 1: is to you know, Facebook and Instagram, right, So I

694
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:39,080
Speaker 1: think that is ultimately what we're going to see happen.

695
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:42,399
Speaker 1: And you know, there'll be some people angry about that,

696
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: and I don't particularly like it, and it's not going

697
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 1: to solve the problems in Canadian media, but you know,

698
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: that's that, right. I think like if we were thinking

699
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:53,400
Speaker 1: kind of bigger picture about what I would want to

700
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:56,920
Speaker 1: see is you know, I think that we can recognize

701
00:37:56,920 --> 00:37:59,919
Speaker 1: that the business model of media makes absolutely no sense

702
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:04,279
Speaker 1: right now and is fundamentally broken. I would like to

703
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:08,800
Speaker 1: see things like maybe attacks on the revenue of Google

704
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: and Facebook, like attacks on digital ad revenue that then

705
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 1: goes into a fund that can fund journalism, and then

706
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 1: maybe the government sets up some kind of funding mechanism

707
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:20,800
Speaker 1: that could maybe even have some degree of public input

708
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: in order to publicly fund good, investigative and local journalism,

709
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: which is something that we're lacking in Canada right now

710
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 1: because of the degree of cuts that have happened. And

711
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: I think one thing that is important to remember, as

712
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 1: I'm sure many of your listeners are, you know, in

713
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 1: the United States, is that Canada does have a large

714
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 1: public broadcaster called the CBC. And I think that you know,

715
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 1: the CBC is decently funded, but when you compare it

716
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 1: to other public broadcasters in Europe and other parts of

717
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: the world other than the United States, it's not funded

718
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: nearly as well as some of those other ones. And

719
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 1: I think that one kind of immediate way that we

720
00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 1: can start to heal the glims of journalism in Canada

721
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:04,400
Speaker 1: and kind of the news deserts that have arisen around

722
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 1: the country is really to increase the budget of the

723
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:11,279
Speaker 1: CBC so that they can do more local reporting and

724
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:16,879
Speaker 1: more investigative journalism, as the private media market has been

725
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 1: really unable to provide those things. You know, there are

726
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:25,239
Speaker 1: other bright spots with like independent media and like left

727
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:29,400
Speaker 1: wing media that have been kind of getting started in Canada,

728
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:32,839
Speaker 1: but of course they always face funding challenges that are

729
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 1: even worse in Canada than the United States because the

730
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:38,759
Speaker 1: market is so much smaller, right, So I think that ultimately,

731
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:42,279
Speaker 1: because of the nature of the Canadian media market and

732
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:46,239
Speaker 1: just the way that Canada works, that we do need

733
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 1: some sort of like a public funding mechanism and a

734
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 1: government solution if we're ever going to address the problems

735
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 1: in Canadian media. The government is trying to solve that

736
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 1: just by you know, connecting news publishers to Google and Facebook,

737
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: and I you know, I'm worried that that's not going

738
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: to produce what we actually want, but it looks like

739
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:06,759
Speaker 1: that's the direction we're headed for now.

740
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 2: Ultimately, Facebook just does not care about any of us.

741
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 2: The wildfires have already killed at least eleven people and

742
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 2: displaced thousands. If Facebook were to bring back news to

743
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 2: the platform, even temporarily, just to help mitigate the harm

744
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:26,360
Speaker 2: of this nightmare, they wouldn't even have to pay anything

745
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:28,879
Speaker 2: to do it, because the law requiring Facebook to pay

746
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:31,280
Speaker 2: news publishers is not yet in effect.

747
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:35,480
Speaker 1: What Meta has decided to do in Canada really shows

748
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: us that this is a platform that does not care

749
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:40,839
Speaker 1: about its users. It does not really give a damn

750
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 1: about the people using the platform. You know, users of

751
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 1: Facebook right now are being evacuated from their homes in

752
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 1: places in Canada are under threat from wildfires. They are

753
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: finding workarounds to share information through the platforms that they

754
00:40:56,680 --> 00:41:00,279
Speaker 1: are dependent on. Because let's be clear, you know a

755
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: lot of regular people do rely on Facebook and do

756
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 1: still use Facebook. And I think it's very smug when

757
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 1: I see kind of people who are more kind of

758
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: techy and in the tech conversation saying like why would

759
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:14,319
Speaker 1: people look at news on Facebook and stuff like that,

760
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: Like these are not your macedon users. These are not

761
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 1: to people going to seek out the decentralized alternatives to

762
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 1: the web and stuff. These are people who signed up

763
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:26,239
Speaker 1: to Facebook, like over a decade ago and are still

764
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:28,480
Speaker 1: using it even as it declined because that's where all

765
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 1: their friends are, and even as it's gotten worse, like

766
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:33,319
Speaker 1: they haven't really gone anywhere else. And I don't think

767
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: that they should be punished because that is how they

768
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:38,279
Speaker 1: use the web, and that is how they've been taught

769
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 1: to use the web. And so I think that, you know,

770
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:44,080
Speaker 1: we need to be more critical of Meta and of Facebook.

771
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: We were doing that for a while and then everyone

772
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,480
Speaker 1: seemed to start to praise Mark Zuckerberg recently because he

773
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 1: launched a Twitter competitor. So you know, I think that

774
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 1: we need to keep up to kind of the the

775
00:41:56,600 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: critical views on this on this company, because yes, it's

776
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:03,359
Speaker 1: happening in Canada right now, and people in Canada are

777
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:06,000
Speaker 1: being affected, and Meta doesn't care because it has what

778
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: two or three billion more users that will look at

779
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: the ads on its platform even if some of the

780
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 1: Canadian users die in wildfires, and so it doesn't care

781
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 1: about that, but it's going to do this, and other

782
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:21,720
Speaker 1: jurisdictions as well as places like California and New Zealand

783
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:23,960
Speaker 1: and you know, other parts of the world try to

784
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 1: move forward with something similar. Facebook does not care about you,

785
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 1: does not care about anyone who uses the service. It

786
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: only cares about its bottom line. And I think that

787
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,200
Speaker 1: we should recognize that much more because it's not just

788
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:36,319
Speaker 1: the case with Facebook. It's the Facebook, it's the case

789
00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 1: with many of these tech companies, and you know, they've

790
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:42,320
Speaker 1: been kind of light off the hook with this stuff

791
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 1: for a bit too long. I think absolutely.

792
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:47,600
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you mentioned that I hate how people are, like, well,

793
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:49,319
Speaker 2: maybe it's a good thing that people aren't getting their

794
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 2: news from Facebook. Tell that to like my mom, who

795
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 2: like that especially gets her news, Like I'm like, you

796
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:56,720
Speaker 2: don't have to like it. You might think that it's

797
00:42:56,960 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 2: not good, like it just is like you don't have like,

798
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 2: you don't have to like it. But that doesn't mean

799
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 2: that they don't deserve information that could actually save their lives,

800
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:06,919
Speaker 2: because that is how they show up to the media

801
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 2: ecosystem exactly.

802
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 1: And that's why we've seen people sharing screenshots of news

803
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 1: articles on Facebook so that their friends and family can

804
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 1: see what is happening, can get the updates about evacuations

805
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 1: and wildfires and things like that, because they can't actually

806
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:24,759
Speaker 1: share news articles and Facebook is stopping them from doing that.

807
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 1: So you see that people are finding ways around, you know,

808
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:31,440
Speaker 1: the kind of the barriers that Facebook has put up

809
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: for them. And I'm sure that people will find other

810
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:38,440
Speaker 1: ways of getting information ultimately, but let's be clear that

811
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:42,440
Speaker 1: Facebook made this change very recently, and all of a sudden,

812
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 1: you know, in the middle of a summer where a

813
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,400
Speaker 1: lot of people are facing difficulties across Canada and certainly

814
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:50,240
Speaker 1: you know in other parts of the world, but Canada

815
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 1: is where they shut off news, and so it's made

816
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 1: it more difficult for those people to get kind of

817
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:59,359
Speaker 1: potentially life saving information. And Facebook doesn't care about that,

818
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:01,840
Speaker 1: even though the law is not actually in effect and

819
00:44:01,880 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: it would not be charged if it let people share

820
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 1: news right now, but it has decided it won't do that.

821
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 2: Well, one thing I can say is that I will

822
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 2: always put my faith in the resilience of people. Everyday

823
00:44:13,200 --> 00:44:16,759
Speaker 2: people to find those workarounds even as tech billionaires are

824
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 2: trying to make it so much harder for them. They

825
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:21,360
Speaker 2: shouldn't have to do this, to be clearer. But people

826
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 2: are resilient and people are always going to find a way.

827
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:27,919
Speaker 2: It's the one thing I'll always believe in. Yep, me too,

828
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:36,279
Speaker 2: got a story about an interesting thing in tech. I

829
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:38,279
Speaker 2: just want to say hi. You can reach us at

830
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 2: Hello at tegody dot com. You can also find transcripts

831
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 2: for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No

832
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 2: Girls on the Internet was created by me bridget Toad.

833
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 2: It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland

834
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 2: is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and

835
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:56,000
Speaker 2: sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host,

836
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 2: bridget Toad. If you want to help us grow, rate

837
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 2: and review us on Apple podcast For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

838
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 2: check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

839
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 2: get your podcasts.