The Internet Streaming Act or Bill C-11 is causing a major stir amongst service providers, less so among service users. Youtube claims that the act will cause Canadian content creators to lose their audience, not increase their audience as is the stated aim of the bill. Since the Canadian content creators have larger portions of their audience off shore than within the boundaries of Canada, I don’t understand how that is possible. If youtube is forced to change algorithms within Canada that promote Canadian content, how does that affect algorithms outside of Canada? The answer is: it doesn’t. Youtube claims that bill C-11 could potentially regulate the entire internet. That is hyperbole, the specifics of the bill are in regard of and in respect of Canadian content and streaming services in Canada. This is not the entire internet, it is not censorship in the sense that Youtube is implying, it is changing a promotion algorithm, not a content moderation. The content will still be there, in its original form but it will be farther down the feed if it is not Canadian created.
Everyone involved in this legislation is being untruthful. That means this legislation is bad legislation and should probably be avoided. At the core of the bill is a good idea that politics ran amok with and screwed up. Sigh
I don’t agree that politics or government has any business regulating what we may access via the internet with exceptions. Examples: without express permission granted, a person’s or an entity’s financial or health or other private, intimate information is off limits. Encouraging others to violence is off limits. Publishing falsehoods as truth is off limits. Otherwise, the internet should be wide open and offer free access to information that is not privately owned and under copyright. The information that is privately owned should be compensated for when it is distributed – in other words, no artist should have their work distributed without being paid. It is Youtube and other streaming services business model for said company to distribute work that is not their own property and for which they pay nothing. The regulations around that are what need to be addressed. If content creators or artists were compensated for the use of their work on the internet, the current unprofitable state of the music and art business would be avoided, we would have a wider choice of music, literature, art to enjoy…the little guy would be happy and Google would have to do something useful for their wages.
Robert On The Air 