Facebook’s Despicable Blackmail

Facebook will certainly never cease to disappoint us.

We know that the social networking site has always dragged its feet in the fight against disinformation. However, it is now threatening to fight aggressively … against information.

This absurd scenario is unfolding in Australia (and was denounced by the minister of Canadian heritage, Steven Guilbeault), where the government has just introduced a bill that aims to force Facebook and Google to pay Australian news companies whose content they have redistributed for many years.

Facebook essentially had two choices:

1. Denounce the initiative; or

2. Acknowledge its mistakes and accept that the time has come to redeem itself for all the harm it has done to the media by cannibalizing them.

Mark Zuckerberg’s company has chosen a third path: doubling down recklessly!

It responded despicably with blackmail: the company will prevent news sharing on its site if the government doesn’t abandon this idea.

This is “the only way to protect against an outcome that defies logic,” Facebook argued.

Shall we analyze this statement? Let’s think about what really “defies all logic.”

Isn’t it the way Facebook has always behaved with the media and their content that doesn’t make sense?

Isn’t it the company’s attitude toward information, treated as a commodity like any other, that is illogical? And the fact that, to Facebook, the truth seems less important than profit?

And isn’t it the way that Facebook behaves with those who dare to question the way it operates that is problematic? This includes governments, which have finally started trying to regulate these supranational tech giants who consider themselves to be above the law.

Facebook executives should look in the mirror more often. It is their model that defies all logic.

What is happening in Australia is not only relevant because it says a lot about Facebook’s true nature, but also because we may soon get a taste of the same medicine.

In Ottawa, we are looking into “fair remuneration for the use of news content,” Minister Guilbeault confirmed a few days ago.

His public support for the Australian government in its standoff with Facebook is not entirely innocent. Now is the time for those who dare to stand up to Facebook to stick together.

The plan to create a “more equitable digital regulatory framework in Canada,” as Guilbeault mentioned, has been delayed because of the pandemic, but it is still alive.

The stage has already been set beautifully by the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel, which published its report in January on the future of communications in Canada.

It noted that licensing fees from tech giants could “provide long-term support to the objective of ensuring a wide range of accurate, reliable and trusted sources of news.”

However, the hardest task still lies ahead. Guilbeault’s actions against Facebook and the other tech giants, who can count on Donald Trump’s support, is a David and Goliath scenario.

There will be blackmail and threats here, too.

And the risks are high.

Let us hope that nerves remain fairly steady in Ottawa. And let’s not forget that victory without risks brings triumph without glory.