Heritage minister not worried Facebook will ban news over new bill – National

Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez is hitting again at Meta, which owns Fb, after the corporate didn’t rule out banning Canadians from viewing and sharing information on the social community.

The Liberal authorities launched a invoice earlier this month that may power digital giants to compensate information retailers for reusing their work.

Canada’s invoice to help the information trade is modelled on a regulation in Australia, the place Fb launched a brief ban on viewing and sharing information on its website final yr in protest of the draft laws.

An government from Meta Canada didn’t rule out an identical response right here when pressed on the difficulty Tuesday at a parliamentary committee.

Rodriguez stated he didn’t count on that may be common with Canadians.

“They made the identical menace in Australia and on the finish of the day they stayed,” Rodriguez informed reporters Wednesday forward of the Liberal caucus assembly.

“It wasn’t well-received by the Australian folks and I don’t assume it might be properly acquired by the Canadian folks.”

Meta Canada’s Rachel Curran was requested on the Commons public security committee on Tuesday whether or not a ban was off the desk.

“We’re nonetheless the entire choices based mostly on our analysis of the laws,” Curran replied.

Curran had additionally informed the committee the corporate was “not consulted” on the contents of the invoice.

Rodriguez stated this was not true.

“They lied,” he informed reporters in French.

“Fb yesterday in committee stated they’d not been consulted, which isn’t true,” he added.

He stated he had met Meta personally on Feb. 10 and that his workers spoke with the corporate recurrently.

He stated Meta had not seen the invoice earlier than it was tabled within the Home of Commons, which is according to parliamentary procedures, however the firm was consulted together with different platforms.

“For us, it’s a easy precept. The door is open. We’re prepared to debate,” he stated.

Meta was not instantly accessible to answer Rodriguez’s feedback on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Curran had informed the committee the tech large was unaware of the “scope” of the laws till it was tabled and that it had “some fairly critical issues.”