While many governments around the world have begun to more actively engage in the journalism policy space in recent years, few efforts have garnered as much attention as Australia’s media bargaining code. Designed by the country’s competition authority to address a perceived market imbalance between platforms and Australian publishers, it has also become a lightning rod for wider debates over the state of journalism, the role of Facebook and Google in journalism’s decline, and whether and how governments should step in.
Enter Canada. In early April, the government introduced the Online News Act, a bill that, similar to the Australian model, would compel large platforms to negotiate with publishers about payment for the use of their content, or be forced into arbitration.
As in Australia, the platforms are lobbying aggressively against the bill. A range of academics, media critics, and journalists, including a network of small publishers, has also emerged in opposition. And Google, in particular, has taken an aggressive stance against the bill.
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