Facebook wrongly says news has no economic value, says Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau

OTTAWA, May 9 (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday that Meta Platforms Inc (META.O)’s opposition to a proposed law that would force its Facebook division and other internet companies to pay for journalistic content Messages based on a flawed argument have no commercial value.

Speaking before a parliamentary committee on the Trudeau administration’s legislation on Monday, a meta-official said news had societal value but no economic value for the company.

“If we’re being asked to compensate these publishers for material that has no commercial value to us, then that’s where the problem lies,” Rachel Curran, director of public policy at Meta Canada, told the committee.

Trudeau said on Tuesday, “The argument that the internet giants are making is not only flawed, it is dangerous to our democracy and our economy.”

Facebook’s stance against paid news content “shows how deeply irresponsible and outspoken they are,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa.

The law, Bill C-18 or the “Online News Act,” proposes rules to force platforms like Facebook and Alphabet’s (togetL.O) Google to negotiate commercial deals and pay news publishers for their content, a move that is a game-changer Step equals law passed in Australia in 2021.

Both Google and Meta have warned that if the bill goes into effect without amendment, they would withdraw access to news articles on their platforms in Canada. Their main objection is to pay for links to news articles published on their websites which they say are not sustainable for their business.

Facebook states that links to news articles make up less than 3% of the content in its users’ feeds and that journalists benefit from publishing their work on the social media platform.

“Someone who is covering the horrors in Bucha (in Ukraine) is not trying to get likes on their Facebook page,” Trudeau said.

Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Edited by David Gregorio

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