from Hacker News

Canada to Compel YouTube, TikTok and Streamers to Boost Domestic Content

by grnmamba on 6/23/22, 2:13 PM with 20 comments

  • by polishdude20 on 6/23/22, 2:32 PM

    What if YouTube just said no? Like, remove YouTube from Canada. Then have Canadian citizens complain to their government and cause an uproar. This is such a sneaky thing the government is doing that most people won't care. But pull YouTube completely out of Canada and people will start to pay attention.

  • by cute_boi on 6/23/22, 2:24 PM

    After this what are they going to boost? Boost anything that supports their political agenda?

    Looks like everything starts like this. Companies like facebook, amazon, google etc. claims they are supporting small business. They will often offer freebies because freebies makes people irrational. Later, in name of security, privacy, small business they forward their political agenda.

  • by jsmith45 on 6/23/22, 6:22 PM

    Realistically, what this will most likely do is require that these services modify their suggestions so that at least X% (probably between 35 and 50) of the recommendations are for Canadian content when viewed from Canada. (And probably additional rules where the topmost suggestion must be Canadian content X% of the time, etc).

    There will also be some form of mandated spending on Canadian content, which I imagine will be required proportional to revenue generated by Canadian viewers. This may potentially require the providers to offer better terms to Canadian content creators than they offer elsewhere if the recommendation changes don't get spending high enough.

    Unfortunately these changes could potentially hurt Canadian content producers. For example, the companies could deliberately under suggest Canadian content producers outside of Canada in order to "make up for" having to over-suggest them within Canada. But, less maliciously, it could also have totally accidental knock on effects. For example Youtube's algorithm might see the high level of viewership from within the producer's country (caused by this law) and erroneously conclude the content is only interesting locally, and suggest it less to people outside Canada. Since many Canadian content creators make more money from people outside Canada than from within, this sort of issue would hurt Canadian content creators.

  • by afavour on 6/23/22, 3:50 PM

    I'm conflicted about this. On one hand it seems kind of silly but on the other I do feel like different countries ought to be able to try out different rules and laws. The globalized tech industry means the entire world looks through the same lens and I think there's a lot lost there.

  • by wonderbore on 6/23/22, 2:41 PM

    Doesn't YouTube already kind of do that? If you're not logged in, you will see content popular in the current region, which often is from the region itself. Once logged in, I generally see more of the same content I watch and search for.

  • by Graziano_M on 6/23/22, 4:57 PM

    These laws are the reason I grew up thinking everyone listened to Bif Naked, I Mother Earth, and Swollen Members. It's also why we got Nickelback.

  • by xhkkffbf on 6/23/22, 3:15 PM

    I have a certain appreciation for what Canada is trying to do, but I think their regulations are kind of crazy and hard to understand. Someone can make a video in Canada about, say, Japan or the US and not mention Canada once, but it can count as Canadian content. Everyone I know in the content business says the Canadian rules are inconsistent and bureaucratic.

  • by etskinner on 6/23/22, 4:14 PM

  • by darepublic on 6/23/22, 3:19 PM

    I've got my ublock filters ready.

  • by grnmamba on 6/23/22, 2:14 PM