OTTAWA—Canada approved legislation that targets what video- and audio-sharing platforms like YouTube and TikTok can broadcast to a Canadian audience, as the country follows in Europe’s footsteps in imposing a heftier regulatory burden on the digital sector.
This marks the second attempt in as many years by Canada’s Liberal government to compel digital platforms, including streaming companies like
Netflix Inc.,
to prominently feature Canadian artists on their services when users with a Canadian internet-protocol address log in. As contemplated under the new measures, users who search for music, television programming, films or do-it-yourself video shorts would get results incorporating a certain quota of Canadian-made content.
YouTube, a unit of
Alphabet Inc.,
TikTok, and the big streaming companies, among them Netflix, as well as legal experts and some Canadian artists, have either opposed Canada’s move or warned of unintended consequences—such as hurting the people the new policy is intended to help.
Countries like Canada are increasingly turning to regulatory changes to protect domestic interests in light of the big inroads the world’s biggest digital companies have made in transforming how households watch programs, listen to music, conduct day-to-day business and consume news.
Similar legislation in Canada last year sparked a debate about free speech. The 2021 effort failed to secure final approval before Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau
called an early election last summer that his Liberal Party won. At the time, the Canadian legislation was considered one of the most far-reaching efforts by a Western democracy to regulate the internet.
TikTok and Alphabet’s YouTube submitted briefs to Parliament that criticized the legislation.
Photo:
dado ruvic/Reuters
Since then, lawmakers in Europe agreed to a set of rules aimed at forcing tech companies to take more responsibility for the content users post online.
The…
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