Updated Canadian Broadcasting Act may affect personal content

[Gordon Fecyk]

I paid attention to this after someone other than the National Post covered it:

New broadcasting bill could regulate all your Facebook, Instagram posts: experts

How, if at all, would us Canucks be affected when posting KSP-related content? I figure I'm set since I have Great White North references scattered throughout my KSP videos, but what do you all think?

[Shpaget]

I'd wager a bag of gummy bears that YT, FB, etc. will sooner just block Canadians from accessing their sites than to jump through those hoops.

[YNM]

3 hours ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

How, if at all, would us Canucks be affected when posting KSP-related content?

If you think your government is still sane, then I don't think you really need to worry too much.

If not... well you know what to do.

1 hour ago, Shpaget said:

I'd wager a bag of gummy bears that YT, FB, etc. will sooner just block Canadians from accessing their sites than to jump through those hoops.

Question that they could even be enforced meaningfully, given the personalized and localized search results already. Like my YouTube 'recommended' tab is just the whole thing what most Indonesians on the .net watch already since I've turned off personalization. If I had turned on personalization, or if someone else has, then that'd be tailored to whatever that person had watched before - like for me it'd mostly be from the channels I subscribed to...

[Gordon Fecyk]

4 hours ago, Shpaget said:

I'd wager a bag of gummy bears that YT, FB, etc. will sooner just block Canadians from accessing their sites than to jump through those hoops.

And ignore a market of 33 million people? 

I have a very low opinion of Facebook as it is. And geoblocking is already a thing alongside geographical ad targeting.

I'm more thinking about YouTube content produced by Canadians possibly being misinterpreted as not Canadian enough, since this proposed change seems to affect creators more than the platforms they use.

[Shpaget]

6 hours ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

And ignore a market of 33 million people? 

If continuing to operate in Canada means that they need to curate all content, sure. Cost of sifting through everything and deciding what is and isn't Canadian enough would be far too costly and giving up on those 33 M people could be cheaper.

[James Kerman]

Thread moved from the lounge as this may affect members of our network.

[Gordon Fecyk]

8 hours ago, Shpaget said:

Cost of sifting through everything and deciding what is and isn't Canadian enough would be far too costly and giving up on those 33 M people could be cheaper.

Hey maybe you're right. 33 mil is about half of Mr Beast's subscribers. Or a medium sized US state.  At the same time they could spin off a regional version of the site and invite users to switch. There has to be other countries Google's made contingency plans like that for.

There used to be a youtube.ca and if you try visiting that now you get redirected to the main site. I can see YT taking the lazy route and just partitioning off a segment, and then telling the CRTC to take off.

It'd be curious to see how this plays out.

8 hours ago, James Kerman said:

Thread moved from the lounge as this may affect members of our network.

I hope it doesn't impact us too much that it comes to this.

[YNM]

19 hours ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

I'm more thinking about YouTube content produced by Canadians possibly being misinterpreted as not Canadian enough

I thought your gov't was a bit more sane than that...

13 hours ago, Shpaget said:

Cost of sifting through everything and deciding what is and isn't Canadian enough would be far too costly and giving up on those 33 M people could be cheaper.

Honestly this is one of those cases where you can go "See that box ? If anyone asks, it's sorted" situation.

[Gordon Fecyk]

7 hours ago, YNM said:

I thought your gov't was a bit more sane than that.

There's a history behind the original Broadcast Act. One needs to understand first where this all came from, and that was a large British colony and a large French colony were looking at the end of the US Civil War going, "um, what if they decide to come here?" Canada is a decades-long experiment in avoiding American manifest destiny, and while it's no longer a hostile experiment and there is a metric tonne of cooperation since the early days, there is still a feeling of, "what's so unique about Canada?" "Well, we're not American." Unfortunately, not many Canadians can imagine a Canadian identity without comparing with their neighbours.

This attitude and decades-long race memory, if you will, extends to things like the Broadcast Act, the federal Goods and Services Tax, health care, language, and countless other things. What might seem insane to our southern neighbours may be comparably acceptable or even preferred here.

So that's where it came from in a nutshell, and it still enjoys enough support that it got revised in 1991 and is being revised again this year. 

[HebaruSan]

Quote

could be subject to regulation

This is a very slippery phrase. Just because the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is being given a certain authority does not mean they will use it in any particular way. At least in the US, a regulatory agency first has to write up rules, submit them for public comment, etc., and if they do something people don't like, the legislature can override those rules at any time. It must be similar in Canada.

My guess? Canadian users who don't use VPNs will see more Alanis Morissette and Kids in the Hall and Letterkenny in sites' search results and related video lists. This stuff about making sure your own uploads are "Canadian enough" is scaremongering at best.

[Gordon Fecyk]

5 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

This stuff about making sure your own uploads are "Canadian enough" is scaremongering at best.

There was a reason I only started paying attention after someone other than the National Post wrote about it.  

[YNM]

3 hours ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

"what's so unique about Canada?" "Well, we're not American."

I get that. Have seen it from Evan Hadfield's videos (Chris Hadfield's son).

But like, if that law is applied to individual producers, that's pretty darn crazy on it's own right. Pretty sure CRTC doesn't apply to individual production houses that makes programmes / content to be broadcasted on TV, right ? Like, if it had been that, it must've caused an uproar. Either that or a draining of production houses that want to produce "not canadian enough" content. The other alternative if it did apply to individual producers is that the law hasn't been applied that fiercely and merely exist as paperwork; The only remaining alternative is that they were only applied at the broadcaster level and production were never impacted.

YouTube is not a broadcaster, nor is it a producer. It merely provides service to allow people to upload videos; monetization and donations were new on the platform and honestly if anything it's the most problematic portion of the service, legal-wise, even though it's the only reason why YouTubers are a thing. And given the way how the law might've been applied, there's only two option of what the effect means here :

1. It barely affects anything and things just went on like it always had.

2. Your gov't is less sane than we thought. Take care.

Edited May 2, 2021 by YNM

[MechBFP]

Ya this won't be an issue. The CRTC is about as fierce as declawed kitten, at worst. This will only be utilized by them in the most egregious of situations, and only after 10 years of pondering about it.

I think the only reason they removed the "user generated content" bit is to prevent the obvious "loop hole" broadcasters could use.

[swjr-swis]

On 4/30/2021 at 7:18 PM, Gordon Fecyk said:

what do you all think?

Predicted CRTC statement, 10 years from now, after sparking some heated debates: "Sorry, eh?"

[Caerfinon]

1 hour ago, swjr-swis said:

"Sorry, eh?"

"This is not the way of our people".... Well it's not typical for the CRTC anyway. 

[snkiz]

Well as I understand it, the idea is to recognise that professionals use platforms like YouTube, tiktok, twitch etc.. And they should be adherent to the same rules they have imposed on traditional media, and they are imposing on things like apple music and Netflix. The problem of course, is that it's poorly worded and has few defining points. This makes it way over reaching. I don't think it will pass as is. I don't think social media companies will put up with it. They tried Something similar in Australia recently. Australia ended up walking it back.

Edited May 10, 2021 by snkiz

[Gordon Fecyk]

2 hours ago, snkiz said:

They tried Something similar in Australia recently. Australia ended up walking it back.

@James Kerman You're from out there - how did that work out?

[Cavscout74]

This oddly enough reminds me of when my state enacted a law required everyone recycle.  Specifically this line from the article:

"And while the government insists that individual Canadians won’t be hauled in front of the regulator to atone for the lack of Shania Twain in their playlists..."

The state said the same thing, the recycling law was being enacted to ensure businesses recycled and they had no plans on fining individuals.  Fast forward a year or two, I was working a job that required about 75% or more travel.  So I frequently I either had no recycling, or just a few things that I didn't bother to put out till the bin was more full.  Then I get a letter in the mail from the city informing me I haven't put my recycling out for 3 weeks and if I continue to not put it out, I would be fined.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Cavscout74

[BuranAce]

Surprising,  no one cares about Canadians.

 

Why cant our goverment just be normal

[Gordon Fecyk]

I don't know, I'd say this is very normal for a Canadian government. Like I explained earlier we're all about being not American. I suspect there was just as much of a panic when the original Broadcasting Act was passed, that we'd not be allowed to enjoy our favourite American shows anymore or get fined.

Mind you we occasionally get accused of playing the Uno Reverse card once in a while.

[snip]

[Kerbart]

15 hours ago, Cavscout74 said:

This oddly enough reminds me of when my state enacted a law required everyone recycle.  Specifically this line from the article:

"And while the government insists that individual Canadians won’t be hauled in front of the regulator to atone for the lack of Shania Twain in their playlists..."

The state said the same thing, the recycling law was being enacted to ensure businesses recycled and they had no plans on fining individuals.  Fast forward a year or two, I was working a job that required about 75% or more travel.  So I frequently I either had no recycling, or just a few things that I didn't bother to put out till the bin was more full.  Then I get a letter in the mail from the city informing me I haven't put my recycling out for 3 weeks and if I continue to not put it out, I would be fined.

Whenever laws are passed with the comment of "clearly this is intended for [xyz] and individuals should not fear [abc]" it's invariably followed by individuals getting arrested/fined for that offense two years  later, and the police claiming "we agree it's ridiculous but our job is to enforce, not to interpret who the law applies to"

[Cavscout74]

4 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Whenever laws are passed with the comment of "clearly this is intended for [xyz] and individuals should not fear [abc]" it's invariably followed by individuals getting arrested/fined for that offense two years  later, and the police claiming "we agree it's ridiculous but our job is to enforce, not to interpret who the law applies to"

Exactly!!

[snkiz]

6 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Whenever laws are passed with the comment of "clearly this is intended for [xyz] and individuals should not fear [abc]" it's invariably followed by individuals getting arrested/fined for that offense two years  later, and the police claiming "we agree it's ridiculous but our job is to enforce, not to interpret who the law applies to"

We are all just dancing around the obvious, laws like this are written vague with broad powers on purpose. They always go back for multiple revisions. As the changes are now I'm not even sure they are constitutional.(Charter same thing, ish.) Unless there's a big agenda to push it through regardless of the consequences, it won't pass as is. And if it does I'm pretty sure it will get struck down.

[Dman979]

Hey all, just a friendly reminder to please try and keep away from politics. I know this is a fine line, but we have had to remove some content.

Thanks!

[Gordon Fecyk]

Sorry about that. The Mercer clip was a historical piece from 2008.