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Re: Meeting for August.

On Tue, 1 Aug 2023 13:56:18 -0400 (EDT)
alayne [ at ] twobikes [ dot ] ottawa [ dot ] on [ dot ] ca wrote:

> See also https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2023/02/billc18reality/
> Geist argues instead for "a fund model with mandated contributions
> that would support actual journalism without getting into issues such
> link payments or copyright law."

That would probably be better, and it wouldn't let Google / Meta /
etc.  wriggle out of paying by simply not linking to news stories.
It's one thing to stop linking to news sites, but quite another to
choose between paying into a fund and ceasing to operate at all in
Canada.

> It's very clear that Google, Meta, etc. have taken over most of what
> used to be newspaper/TV advertising, especially since 2010. The drop
> in ad revenue looks like it's going over a cliff.

It's very clear to me that Google, Meta, etc. are a far higher threat to
our freedom than the Canadian government is.  They need to be broken up.

This proposal from Google is particularly evil:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrity-api-sounds-like-drm-for-the-web/

> But in terms of alternatives to newspaper display ads or TV ads, I
> suspect that the "social media" companies are not providing what they
> promise. How many of us block all online ads?

See Google's proposal above.  They want a world like that Black Mirror
episode, where your TV watches you and ensures you consume ads.

[...]

> But what would be even more effective is for more governments to stop 
> advertising on "social", as the federal government recently has, and 
> divert that money to Canadian media. Unfortunately, Ottawa City
> Council recently voted down a motion to do that -- the city spends 20
> percent of its ad budget on "social".

I am shocked that our municpal goverment would do this.  Shocked,
I say! 🙄

I am very cynical about the whole situation.  The Internet was an
ambitious project that was pretty nice for a while, but it has now
turned into a tool for greed, control and suppression of democracy.
It's a net loss for humanity.

Regards,

Dianne.

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