IT World Canada - Government and big tech funding newsrooms in Canada raises concerns

Center for Journalism and Liberty Director Courtney Radsch’s testimony before the Canadian Parliament Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (CHPC) was quoted in an IT World Canada story. In her testimony, Dr. Radsch raised concerns about the potential for Big Tech to gain financial and editorial influence over newsrooms and condemned government investment in the major platforms.

The Heritage Committee also questioned whether it is reasonable for the government to heavily subsidize Meta through things like advertisements at a time when the company has been accused of fostering online hate, and has refused to comply with Canadian law.

Courtney Radsch, director at the Center for Journalism and Liberty, Open Markets Institute, said that she is shocked that the government subsidizes Meta, a company, she said, “that has proven to be so detrimental to our public health, to the health of our democracies, to mental health, to adolescents’ health, and which has accumulated so much power through its vertical and horizontal monopolies that it can bypass democratic oversight.”

The Open Markets Institute also recently released a paper, Radsch said, that revealed that Unifor media workers get harassed, primarily through messages on Facebook and X/Twitter, by members of the public who are told repeatedly that legislation will kill the free and open internet.

Read full article here.