When You Fight For Something You Don't Understand

Canadians being urged to stop posting on Facebook, Instagram by advocacy group
(https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/canadians-being-urged-to-stop-posting-on-facebook-instagram-by-advocacy-group) 

An advocacy group.  How wonderful.  See my previous post about all activist being assholes but for the benefit of the doubt, maybe these advocates aren't all assholes but are just misinformed because misinformation is a common currency these days especially from the groups they claim to support. 

"The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting group is asking people to stop posting content on Meta’s platforms on Aug. 23 and 24.  The group says the move is meant to show that Canadians won’t be pushed around by Meta, which decided to pull news from Canadian publishers from its platforms in response to legislation that recently passed." 

Meta isn't pushing anyone around.   It wasn't a response to legislation, Meta is just abiding by it.   If you read anything about Bill C-18, it's pretty clear the government tried to extort money from Meta and Google.  Meta said, OK we'll follow your law and not allow news to be posted on Meta.  The playground bullies on this topic are the Canadian government and now, advocacy groups.   Two wrongs don't make a right.   The government thought Bill C-18 would be easy money for them but when you're that glib, things like this will happen and then everyone gets nothing.

"So far, Meta has shown an unwillingness to cooperate on a potential deal." 

Lisa Laventure, head of communications for Meta Canada: "The Online News Act forces us to end access to news content in order to comply with the legislation.” 

"The group’s executive director Marla Boltman says the boycott will show Meta that if news leaves the platform, so will users." 

My question is why are people still using Meta and why would anyone use Meta as a news provider?  I wouldn't want my news coming from a second-tier entertainment website.  If you're using Facebook as a news source, you're probably still wearing a mask when you go outside. 

I hope Marla doesn't really believe that Facebook will be losing "many Canadian users" or is a "valuable commodity".  Facebook is more of a commode that a commodity and it's not like this "demonstration" of not posting for 2 days will do anything.  More people are already in Facebook Jail longer than two days for posting a funny picture.  And then what happens after the 24th?   Posting starts again on the 25th?  That means no users from The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting actually left the platform making this an empty threat.  Or Friends isn't serious at all and are looking for some free press.  OK, that worked because I haven't heard of these yo-yos until today. 

Marla, look up Michael Geist.   He's the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa.  You might learn something about your "cause" and who's really to blame. 

If you're going to fight for something, make sure you understand what you're fighting about.  If you don't, at least make sure you're not on the side of the jerks.