Swat off the press: Meta v Canada's news ploy

This episode examines the standoff between Meta (Facebook) and the Canadian government over the requirement for social media platforms to pay news outlets for content shared on their platforms.

1. Meta's response to Canada's law has been to block news content, challenging the government's directive.
2. News outlets, especially smaller ones, are suffering significant drops in web traffic and visibility.
3. Some news organizations are adapting by exploring alternative digital strategies like newsletters and apps.
4. The standoff raises questions about the financial sustainability of news publishers and the role of social media in news dissemination.
5. The situation reflects a global challenge, with other countries watching how Canada's legislation impacts negotiations between governments and tech giants.

1: Introduction to the Conflict

Overview: The episode opens by setting the stage for the ongoing conflict between Meta and the Canadian government over news content payment laws. Jason Palmer: "Nearly a year ago, Canada's government decided to take on the social media giants..."

2: The Impact on News Publishers

Overview: Discussion on how the ban has affected news sites, particularly smaller and local publishers. Maureen Gugu: "Until last summer, her site was getting about 12,000 views per month. And now it's down to about a quarter of that..."

3: Responses and Adaptations

Overview: Explores how news publishers are adapting to the ban with new digital strategies. Tom Wainwright: "They've set up a newsletter which has now got 5000 subscribers..."

4: Broader Implications

Overview: Analyzes the broader implications of the standoff for global media laws and digital news ecosystems. Tom Wainwright: "Canada isn't the only government that's tried this kind of thing..."

1. Diversify news consumption sources to stay informed despite social media bans.
2. Support local news outlets by subscribing to newsletters or other direct services.
3. Engage with news content directly on official news websites to boost their traffic and visibility.
4. Use social media responsibly, understanding its role and limitations in news dissemination.
5. Stay updated on digital policy changes that could affect access to news content.

A bid to squeeze money from social-media platforms that link to news content has backfired: what was intended to help publishers is instead harming them. America’s workers still work more than Europe’s; what is changing is where they do it (9:44). And remembering Shirley Conran, whose books were more than merely saucy: they helped women with everything from money to mathematics (16:22).

People

Jason Palmer, Tom Wainwright, Maureen Gugu

Companies

Meta, Guguquez News, Energetic City

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

Janice Torres
Hi, this is Janice Torres from Joquiero di Nero. If you own or operate a business, whether it's a local operation or a global corporation, partnering with bank of America could be your smartest move. By teaming with bank of America, you'll enjoy exclusive digital tools, award winning insights, and business solutions so powerful you'll make every move matter. Position your business to capitalize on opportunity in a moment's notice, visit bankofamerica.com bankingforbusiness to learn more. What would you like the power to do?

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Jason Palmer
The Economist hello, and welcome to the intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

American workers have a reputation for working longer hours, and it's indisputable that they get less holiday in the latest numbers showing the disparity with european workers. The interesting part is not how long Americans toil, but where. And yes, Shirley Conran wrote novels that were full to bursting with sex, but her sole purpose was not to titillate. Our correspondent reflects on a life spent helping women with finances, with mathematics, even with catching their partners cheating.

First up, though, you could call it a game of chicken. Nearly a year ago, Canadas government decided to take on the social media giants Facebook and the others the government said, should pay Canadas struggling news outlets for showing links to their reporting. And so the government passed a law to that effect. But Meta, which owns Facebook, refused to cough up. Instead, Instagram and Facebook users soon saw those media sites blocked with the warning in response to canadian government legislation.

News content cant be viewed in Canada. So whos winning the game of chicken? Is either of the sides ready to swerve? So far, it looks as if meta has successfully called the governments bluff on this one. Tom Wainwright is the economist, tech and media editor.

Tom Wainwright
News publishers are losing out in terms of web traffic, but meta itself doesnt seem to be affected. It seems that when they said that their users werent all that interested in news on the platform, they were right. So is that to say that Canadians in a general sense are reading less news in general? Well, its certainly true in the case of some small publishers. I spoke to a few, including Maureen Gugu, whos the owner and the sole journalist of a tiny site called Guguquez News, which focuses on stories about indigenous people in the eastern atlantic provinces.

And she was saying that until last summer, before the ban, her site was getting about 12,000 views per month. And now it's down to about a. Quarter of that and the one thing about indigenous communities in Canada is that they're all connected through Facebook, either promoting articles or sharing information or creating groups. So for me, as an indigenous journalist, I rely on Facebook. And she said she's finding two problems, really.

For one thing, obviously, she's getting less traffic from people who used to come to her stories through Facebook, where the links used to be shared. But she's also finding it harder to come across stories in the first place. And that's just harder now that less news is circulating on the platform. But the bigger picture here is that news publishers were supposed to get a slice of the action here. So it's not just problems, right?

Jason Palmer
It's some benefit? Well, yes and no. Meta's not paying any money yet, and so there's no benefit so far on the meta side of the equation. But Google has said that it will pay in, it's promised about $100 million per year, and that money's going to be divided up among newsrooms. Now, nobody quite knows yet exactly how much they're going to get.

Tom Wainwright
Maureen, who I spoke to, has applied for that money, and she hopes that she'll get something. She hopes also that the meta situation will be resolved. And there's an interesting question about who people blame here. You know, some people are frustrated with the government for passing this law. Other people are frustrated with meta for not playing ball, as many see it.

And most people, it seems, are pretty frustrated with both sides. You know, journalists like myself, we have to find innovative ways to share our stories. Like we have to take screen grabs of stories we post on our website or find another way to link through them. Now, Maureen's not alone in this. I spoke to Adam Rayburn, who's the editor of Energetic City, which is a news site covering a rural part of British Columbia.

He said that the Facebook news ban initially cut their traffic by 30% to 40%. But he's managed to get quite a lot of that back by trying out new things. They've set up a newsletter which has now got 5000 subscribers. They've built an app through which people can read their news, and they even put up posters around town with QR codes linking to their site. We're still using Facebook because we're allowed to pay for advertising on Facebook.

Maureen Gugu
Some people here have very hard feelings about being kicked off and then wanting to give Facebook the money. But the point for us was it could help us still to build our email newsletter. Right? Which is one way all publishers are finding that in the absence of Facebook, they have to get in touch with their readers directly. I should mention, by the way, that the economist is affected by this too.

Tom Wainwright
We're not a canadian outlet, but the ban applies to all news outlets in Canada, whether they're canadian or foreign. So you've outlined kind of how this is hitting the news industry. What about the other side of the equation here? Well, it's very different. I mean, meta claims, and as far as we can tell from third parties, it's true that the number of users using both Facebook and Instagram hasn't really changed.

The number of people downloading those apps hasn't really changed, according to third parties that I spoke to. And in terms of ad revenue as well, there doesn't seem to be much difference there. They don't break out ad revenue for Canada alone, but they itemize it in their quarterly earnings for Canada and the US. And those have been rising. I mean, in the last few quarters, it's been up something like 19% year on year.

So they don't seem to be struggling. The ones who have been affected by this law actually are the organizations that the law was trying to help. And this is bigger than just a Canada story, right? Canada isn't the only government that's tried this kind of thing. Yeah, you're right.

Canada was partly inspired by a similar law that was passed in Australia in 2021. And initially, the australian experience seemed to be pretty successful from the point of view of the publishers. Google and Facebook both agreed to pay in some money there, more than $100 million. But I think the experience in Canada really might have persuaded meta at least to take a harder line. And in fact, in February, it said that it wouldn't renew the deals that it had previously struck in Australia.

We heard an interesting insider account on this back in April from a guy named Jesper Dubh, who was previously the head of international news partnerships at Meta until just last year. And he was speaking at the Perugia International Journalism Festival in Italy. He said that he was very doubtful that Meta would ever get back into this. He said that for now, Meta has left the building. And he said, the problem really is that the business case for meta of paying for news, just doesn't stack up.

What is your obligation as a player in a market when you reach so many people? Do you have a civic duty as a platform to provide access to information? Look at the Philippines, where Facebook is pretty much the only way to get information from outside. And the way that Facebook went about this, I think, is a way you can do this. They said, well, if you want to measure the value, take it away and see what happens.

And they did. Nothing happened. They took down every bit of news in Canada, nothing happened. Some even say that the business metrics went up. That kills me.

Tom Wainwright
So, following Australia's initial success, lots of countries, including Britain, Brazil and South Africa, were kind of interested in this, and they explored doing something similar. But I do wonder if Canada's difficulties might cause some of them at least to think again. So what's your take then, in the canadian and in the general case, where do you think this is going? Well, Canada's government isn't giving up. I mean, their view is that meta needs to play ball on this, and they say that Meta should still have to pay because some news is still being shared on its platforms.

People are sharing screenshots, people in some cases of finding ways to tweak the web link so that it gets through. So they are claiming that meta should have to pay up, and an independent regulator is going to settle that question later on this year, the government has said that if the regulator doesn't rule along the lines that it wants, then it will look into amending the law. So meta could yet be forced to pay. But to me, it looks like this is a non starter, really. These laws forcing people to pay just for allowing people to link to somebody's site really undermine the way that the web works.

Payment for clicks is something that we've never had online, and arguably it undermines free speech as well, saying that somebody should have to pay before they're allowed to even link to something you've written. It's also far from clear that having your links on Facebook is bad for news publishers. I mean, most news publishers, including us, spend quite a lot of time trying to make our stories go viral on social media. And the idea that we're harmed by our stories being on them is something that has had many of us scratching our heads. Lastly, I think it's slightly odd that the government in Canada and elsewhere is arguing that news publishers alone deserve money for their content being linked to on these platforms.

After all, there's loads of content linked to on Facebook and Instagram and everywhere else. And if you're going to pay news publishers, why not pay any other company that's linked to it? Just doesn't seem to make sense. So I think Canada and other countries trying these laws will face a bit of an uphill battle, partly in the practical sense of trying to get meta to pay, but also in the principled sense of persuading people that these laws really make sense. Tom, thanks very much for your time.

Thank you.

Matt
Hi, this is Matt and Sean from two black guys. Good credit if you own or operate a business, whether it's a local operation or a global corporation, partnering with bank of America could be your smartest move. By teaming with bank of America, you'll enjoy exclusive digital tools, award winning insights, and business solutions so powerful you'll make every move matter. Position your business to capitalize on opportunity in a moment's notice. Visit bankofamerica.com bankingforbusiness to learn more.

What would you like the power to do? Bank of America Na Copyright 2024.

Jason Palmer
You know, it's moments like these on the tuscan coast with a glass of Chianti that I'm glad I'm not an american worker. I mean, I'm american and a worker, just not a worker in America. When I was, I gotta tell you, it was nothing but work, work, work. Two weeks vacation a year, no more. Here in Europe, that would be seen as a human rights violation.

Okay, reality check. Im not really in Tuscany. The podcast budget, sadly, wouldnt stretch to that. And that old stereotype about Europeans working shorter hours and fewer days and taking longer vacations, its true. But it wasnt always across the European.

Simon Rabinovic
Union, people work on average about 1600 hours each year. Simon Rabinovic is the economist us economics editor. Americans work 15% more about 1800 hours, according to the OECD. Its not just that Europeans are taking longer holidays. If you look at the days that theyre actually at work, for example, in Britain, France, Germany, its about half an hour less than in America.

Jason Palmer
How to explain that? Is it simply attitudes to work? A cultural question? It makes sense to think that culture plays into it. And obviously Europe has a reputation for being somewhat more leisurely than America.

Simon Rabinovic
People taking longer coffee breaks, taking longer holidays. Whereas Americans, there's a culture of hard work, of rugged individualism, a puritanical streak that goes back a long time. So that clearly is part of it. The problem, though, with just ascribing it to culture, is that culture is a relative constant. If you look at working hours up until the 1970s, Europeans in fact, worked a lot more than Americans.

For example, if you look at Germany, which has a reputation for being one of the hardest working countries in Europe, working hours there are down 30% from 1970 to the present day, whereas in America they've basically held constant over that time. So this is not just a cultural thing. What's changed then, if it's not culture? This has been a matter of debate for some time. One provocative answer that was offered about two decades ago by Edward Prescott, a late american economist, was that the key is taxation.

If you go back to the 1970s, at that point, taxation levels in Europe and the US were roughly equivalent. But then, in the subsequent decades, taxes rose in Europe, fell in America as a percentage of GDP. Taxes in America now are about 28%. In Europe, they're about 40%. That might be a factor.

Jason Palmer
So you're saying that a lower tax rate motivates people to work more? That was Prescott's view, the idea that at least higher taxes made workers less motivated. But it's not so straightforward, because you can equally say that if you're an american and you're paying less tax, you could work just as much as a European and take home even more income. So you might be motivated to work even less. And indeed, a range of empirical studies have shown that just lowering taxes does not necessarily lead workers to work nearly as much as you would need to explain the Europe versus american working differences.

So we're still on the hunt for a mechanism. There is one mechanism that is staring researchers and us in the face, which is that Europe has a whole host of rules that are really worker friendly. It's a lot tougher for companies to fireworkers. It's easier to organize unions, and there's also a range of regulations that impact working time. Most famously, of course, there's France's 35 hours workweek.

Simon Rabinovic
Europe also, for decades, has built up mandatory paid vacation time into the work year. America is one of only six countries in the world that does not have federally mandated paid vacation time. So regulations are clearly a big difference, and they're one that has really opened up over the last few decades general economic relationship, that as people get richer, they typically want to work less. And you can see that very clearly within Europe, where the wealthiest countries per capita, Germany, the Netherlands, now work actually a lot less than the poorer countries like Bulgaria and Romania. But America will be fairly high in those league tables of rich countries.

Jason Palmer
Right. And yet still they're the workiest ones. That's right. And so I guess that's one more puzzle, is that regulations might make the difference, but if Americans are so wealthy as they are, why don't they demand more regulations or demand more time off from their companies? And here I think you have kind of an interaction of a variety of different variables.

Simon Rabinovic
Now that it's become more normal to take time off. In Europe, there's kind of less stigma about doing that, whereas in America, workers don't necessarily want to be seen as slackers also, Americans have much weaker unions. Without that kind of union power, it's a lot harder for workers across companies, across sectors to get together to demand more holiday time. There is one more wrinkle to all of this, which is that since COVID there's been a big increase in working from home. But if you look at it, there's some very big differences in different parts of the world.

A comprehensive survey last year of the way that people work found that on average, Americans spend about 1.4 days per week working from home. In Europe, it's 0.8 days. So if you apply that difference to the average annual working hours, you find that Europeans and Americans now spend almost the exact same amount of time in the office. In Europe, it's 13 20 hours per year. In America is 13.

So Americans may be doing 15% more work every year, but that extra 15% now is almost entirely done either from the comfort of their own homes or occasionally on holiday, maybe even on a beach, maybe even a beach in Europe. I try to do as much work on a european beach as I could possibly get away with, but don't tell the bosses. Simon, thanks very much for joining us. Thank you, Jason.

Catherine Nixie
Did it excite her? That was what people always wanted to know. Catherine Nixie is a Britain correspondent for the Economist and this week is standing in for our obituaries editor Anne Rowe. They meant sexually, of course, though they didn't dare to use that word. Did it excite her to write sex scenes?

They all seemed to think that she was panting over her keyboard. And certainly Dame Shirley Conran wrote a lot about sex, but she didn't find it arousing. She was too busy concentrating on her spelling.

People always asked her about sex afterwards. When Lace, her most famous book, had become an international bestseller in a tv series and the word bonkbuster had entered the dictionary, people started treating her as an authority. Money, not sex, was what mattered to her in the end, because money was freedom and money was power, and men and women would never be equal until they made the same amount of money. Everything she wrote, she wrote to help women. She wrote the feminist manifesto superwoman to help women cope with housework, because, as she put it, life is too short to stuff a mushroom.

Then she wrote the financial course, money stuff, to help women cope with finances because similarly, she said, life is too short to be short of money. And she wrote Lace to help schoolgirls better understand sex because the life was certainly too short for bad sex.

Her own education had been expensive but appalling. At 15, she'd been sent to finishing school in Switzerland, which gave her social finish and perfect dictionary. She always pronounced sexual as sexual, but also finished off any prospects of a proper job. So when her angry, alcoholic father kicked her out of her home when she was 19, she realized that she was completely unqualified to do anything at all. It was in Chelsea that she met her husband, Terrence Conran.

Terrence would later become a dazzlingly avant garde designer who advocated such radical things as minimalist wooden metal chairs, using test tubes as spice racks and putting single stem flowers in vases. She wasn't attracted to him at first. At first, she'd thought he was gay. Quite a lot of people thought Terence was gay. In fact, he was not at all gay.

The affairs started quickly. Suspecting the secretary, Shirley gave her some fancy roger and gallet carnation soap for Christmas. If Terence returned smelling of it, that would be proof she thought he did. It was they divorced? Top tip to catch a philanderer.

The day she got divorced was the day she realized the importance of money. She was 30 years old, with no job, no money and two children. She started to work, first as a journalist and then writing books. The first book she wrote was superwoman. Then, a few years later, Lace.

She had actually been planned to write a clinically correct sexual manual for schoolgirls. Girls were being swamped by sex. In those days. There was sex everywhere. In magazines, in books, on film.

But it was all controlled by men. The authors were men, editors were men, the filmmakers were men. It was so bewildering for girls. They didn't know what went where. What should it feel like?

Should they save up for a brazilian? Or was that a cake? So, to prepare, Shirley did 18 months of research. But then she got bit bored by it and by women's fantasies. So many british women seem to want to be ravished by a schoolmaster in a cornfield.

She was a virgo. Far too practical for that sort of thing. Imagine all those bits sticking in your bum. She also had another very practical thought, because she realized that schoolgirls would never read a clinically correct, irreproachable book about sex that adults felt that they should read. So she decided to write a clinically correct, highly reproachful book that adults felt that they shouldn't.

And so lace was born. Which one of you is pregnant? Maybe all of us are.

It was an instant international bestseller, smuggled around schools like contraband in brown paper bags.

It was also that infamous scene with the olive oil, which she ever, the conscientious homemaker observed, made a terrible mess of the sheets. There was an even more infamous and slightly revolting scene with the goldfish. The only thing that she didn't get in was the word masturbate. Her male editor felt that the world wasn't ready for it, so she had to use a euphemism instead. That, she felt, was the last taboo.

She did get away with other things, though. She gave one of her heroines a husband called Toby. Toby was an avant garde architect who liked minimalist metal chairs, single stemmed flowers and chemistry beakers, and putting on stockings, suspenders and lipstick. In her afterword, she noted that Terence had paid a lawyer to read the whole thing to see if she'd libelled him. What struck her was less his suspicion than his commission.

Imagine being paid to read lace for 10 hours. That was nice work if you could get it.

Things were changing for women and for her. After Lace became a bestseller, she bought her own 10th century chateau and took to traveling by Concorde. And when the 30th anniversary edition came out, they even let her have that word in it. It was so nice to have the proper verb. The world, she felt, was getting better for women.

Now that did excite her.

Jason Palmer
Katherine Nixie on Shirley Conran, who's died aged 91 that might be all for this week's episodes of the intelligence, but what have you heard? Our Saturday edition. If youre not already a subscriber to economist podcasts, plus, dear listener, now is your chance for the rest of may well be offering free access to the weekend intelligence, our special end of the week episode that dives into poignant, compelling, and sometimes very personal stories from our correspondents. Check it out. Its seriously worth your time.

As for the weekday version, our editors are Chris Impey and Jack Gill. Our deputy editor is John Joe Devlin and our sound designer is will rowe. Our senior producers are Rory Galloway and Sarah Lamyuk. Our senior creative producer is William Warren. Our producers are Maggie Khedifa and Benji Guy and our assistant producer is Henrietta McFarlane, with extra production help this week from Peter Greenitz and Ben Loins.

We'll all see you back here tomorrow, you know, for that weekend thing I was talking about.

Janice Torres
Hi, this is Janice Torres. From Yokiero Di Nero. From a local business to a global corporation, partnering with bank of America gives your operation access to exclusive digital tools, award winning insights, and business solutions so powerful you'll make every move matter. Visit bankofamerica.com bankingforbusiness to learn more. What would you like the power to do?

Bank of America. Na Copyright 2024.