Two years ago this month, Australia passed a law called the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, which, as the name suggests, forced digital platforms like Facebook and Google to negotiate deals to pay the news media for the latter’s content. If they failed to do so, the Australian government would reserve the right to impose deals between the parties. Before the law was passed, Google warned users that the legislation could affect their ability to search; meanwhile, Facebook tried to sway public opinion against the law by promising to block all news content from its platform in Australia. When the law passed, Facebook did precisely that. But after amendments made the law less stringent, the platform removed the ban. Eventually, both Facebook and Google cut deals with multiple news companies. Fast forward two years, and a similar scenario is playing out in Canada. Encouraged by the sums of money that Australian media companies received as a result of the legislation there—about a hundred and fifty million US dollars, according to a report in CJR by Bill Grueskin, a professor at Columbia Journalism School—the Canadian government moved to implement its own version of such a law: Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which has been through the House of Commons and is now making its way through the Senate. Last month, Google removed news from Canadian search results in what the company described as “tests.” Last week, Facebook said that it will cut off access to news in Canada if the law is passed in its present form. Rinse, repeat.

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