Canada famously has regulations applying to traditional broadcasters around how much Canadian content – music, films, TV shows etc – they must air. Now the Canadian government is working through the process of adapting those rules for the streaming era.
Its new legislation, Bill C-10, is described by Bloomberg as “among the most far-reaching plans by governments anywhere to regulate the algorithms tech companies use to amplify or recommend content”.
This is not just about video and music streaming services, it’s about social media too, which is sparking a lot of debate about how local-content quotas should (or even whether they could) be applied to platforms with a large amount of user-generated content.
YouTube has already protested, saying that it supports the goal of the bill, but is “deeply concerned about the possible unintended consequences… If Bill-C10 rules were to go into effect as currently written, people would be seeing suggestions not based on their personal preferences or even what is most relevant, but what the government decides is ‘Canadian.’”
Image by abdallahh (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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