MPs summon Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg to face questions on blocking news access – National | 24CA News
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is being summoned by a parliamentary committee for the third time in 4 years — this time over the tech firm’s menace to dam news from Canadians on its social-media platforms.
The choice comes every week after the corporate, which owns Facebook and Instagram, introduced it will block news if the Liberal authorities’s Online News Act passes in its present kind.
The laws, also referred to as Bill C-18, would require tech giants to pay Canadian media corporations for linking to or in any other case repurposing their content material on-line.
The House of Commons heritage committee agreed on Monday to summon Zuckerberg, the corporate’s president of world affairs, Nick Clegg, and the pinnacle of Meta Canada, Chris Saniga, to look at an upcoming assembly.
It additionally agreed to request inside and exterior paperwork from Meta and from Google, which lately blocked news entry for some Canadian customers to check out a potential response to Bill C-18 _ with some critics calling the committee’s request a violation of privateness and a focused “shakedown.”
Meta didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Zuckerberg has repeatedly ignored summons from Ottawa earlier than, first in 2019 when an ethics committee was learning customers’ privateness on social media platforms, and once more in 2021 when the heritage committee was learning an Australian legislation just like Bill C-18.
The House of Commons doesn’t have the facility to summon people who dwell exterior of Canada, however it may implement the summons in the event that they ever set foot within the nation, a transfer that may be thought-about extraordinarily uncommon.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce is expressing considerations that the committee’s choice to hunt inside paperwork is “undemocratic,” partially due to considerations that third-party communication from different organizations might be handed over to the committee.
“Requiring and compelling that information to be shared with them in a public forum doesn’t even meet the government’s own standards around access to information that they need to provide to the public,” stated Matthew Holmes, the chamber’s senior vice-president of coverage and authorities relations.
Its CEO, Perrin Beatty, additionally penned a letter to the committee on Sunday, saying the transfer poses a severe menace to the privateness of Canadians, particularly those that oppose the federal government’s Online News Act.
“Every individual and every organization in Canada has the right to decide whether it supports Bill C-18 or any other piece of legislation that comes before Parliament. They should be free to do so without fear of retribution for their views,” Beatty stated.
Scotty Greenwood, CEO of the Canadian American Business Council, additionally expressed concern over Ottawa’s request for inside paperwork.
“This feels like a gratuitous shakedown targeted at the U.S.,” Greenwood stated.
She additionally criticized the timing of the movement, which was handed three days earlier than U.S. President Joe Biden is about to fulfill with Canadian parliamentarians.
“If the roles were reversed and the U.S. legislature was targeting Canadian companies, there would be an outrage in Canada,” stated Greenwood.
Her council held roundtable discussions on Friday with senior U.S. authorities officers about Biden’s upcoming go to and his agenda, she stated.
“Right across the board, our members are concerned with the targeting of American companies.”
Still, members of Parliament on the committee have determined to pursue even additional examine of what they’re calling abuses of energy by international tech giants.
“This is not only about C-18,” stated Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, who launched the movement for the brand new examine on Monday. It was supported by different Liberal MPs, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois, whereas Conservative MPs on the committee abstained from the vote.
It will converse to “larger issues of how very large companies use anti-(competitive), monopolistic tactics to seek to influence parliaments to meet their desires,” he stated.
“This is not about whether C-18 is the right approach, or the wrong approach, but it’s about how tech companies are tackling that and other similar laws around the world.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed March 20, 2023.
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