The Google News homepage is displayed on an iPhone in Ottawa on Feb. 28. Both Google and Facebook have submitted amendments to a Senate committee examining Bill C-18.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Facebook and Google have submitted a slew of suggested amendments to a Senate committee that is examining the federal government’s online news bill. The proposed changes include removing television, video, radio and podcasts from the bill’s scope.
Facebook said in a document it prepared for senators that it wants “broadcasters [and] radio generally” ruled out of the proposed legislation, known as Bill C-18. The bill would require the tech giants to pay media organizations for using or linking to their stories.
The company also said it was concerned the bill would incentivize news organizations to post their work on its platform in order to get paid.
Rachel Curran, head of public policy in Canada for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, told the Senate transport and communications committee on Wednesday that the bill is “unworkable.”
She said Facebook has already decided to block Canadians from accessing news on the company’s platform if the bill passes in its current form.
“This bill is going to force us to end the availability of news on our platforms in Canada and we don’t want to be there,” she said.
Richard Gingras, vice-president of news at Google, told the committee by video link that he thought a “disproportionate allocation” of funds to the CBC and other broadcasters under Bill C-18 could mean that small news organizations will miss out.
Ms. Curran likewise told senators she thought the bill would further subsidize “large legacy news organizations and profitable broadcasters” at the expense of independent and innovative news businesses.
Mr. Gingras said Google “has not suggested we would shut down our operations in Canada.” But he said the company could choose to adapt its products.
Google restricted access to news for around 1.1 million Canadians earlier this year, in what it said was a five-week test of a potential response to C-18 becoming law.
“I have no certainty now as to what we might do,” Mr. Gingras said when asked by Senator Donna Dasko how the company would react to the bill’s passage.
In a document that details Google’s proposed amendments for senators, obtained by The Globe and Mail, the company does not suggest excluding the CBC or other broadcasters from the bill. But it says C-18 should apply only to written text “of a journalistic nature.”
Mr. Gingras told the committee Google doesn’t make much revenue from searches for news.
“Advertisers aren’t particularly interested in newsy queries,” he said.
Google and Facebook have already signed agreements with some news organizations, including The Globe, to pay for the rights to use their news articles.
Mr. Gingras said uncertainties about how the bill will work risk forcing Google to halt negotiations with news organizations until the company can get clarity.
He said the bill creates “an extreme level of business uncertainty and uncapped financial liability that Google is being asked to accept.”
Laura Scaffidi, a spokesperson for Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, argued that the bill’s demands on the tech companies are reasonable. “All we’re asking the tech giants like Facebook and Google to do is negotiate fair deals with news outlets when they profit from their work.”