Google to Stop Limited News Censorship in Canada on March 16
Alison Anderson
13 Mar 2023
lphabet's Google has been testing limited news censorship in response to the Canadian government bill that aims to compel online platforms to pay publishers for content. On Friday, a company executive informed the Canadian parliamentary panel investigating the tech firm that these tests would end on March 16.
The tests began on February 9 and were meant to last five weeks. They affected less than 4 percent of users in Canada who found their search results blocked from some news articles. According to Google's public policy manager Jason Kee, these tests are similar to thousands of other product tests conducted by the company regularly. They will be ending next week as planned.
Despite this announcement, there are still questions surrounding how effective such censorship would have been if implemented permanently by Google, for it complies with the bill from the Canadian government. There is also concern over how much power companies like Google should wield when it comes to regulating access and content online and whether or not specific changes can limit freedom of expression for citizens online.
Critics have argued that large tech firms such as Google already have an unfair advantage when dealing with publisher payments since they hold so much control over digital advertising revenues worldwide. Smaller publishers may suffer even more due to a lack of resources if they don't receive adequate compensation from companies like Google. At the same time, larger organizations may fare better in negotiations due to non-negotiable positions held by big players in the technology industry today.
Conclusion
At any rate, while there may still be much debate surrounding this issue until a resolution is found, one thing remains clear; come March 16th, Canadians will no longer need to worry about any potential censorship when searching for news articles related to topics on Google’s platform within the country’s borders at least temporarily until further decisions are made regarding the matter going forward if needed so be it.