babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Canada private media bailout is coming
January 26, 2017 - 6:54pm
$$$$$
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadian-media-need-a-100-m...
There is a report with in the article. Rabble is mentioned a couples times in the report :). I have alot problems just giving finincial support to giant press orgranizations. And they want to make changes with CBC which I don't like. This put before the Heritage committee and I spoke with the clerk to committie to as to present a written submission that will point of objectable ideas in report. If anyone wants to make a written submission to the Hertiage committe let me know and I post the procedure.
The headline should read Industry Insider Seeks Payola from Government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Greenspon
One thing left out of the radio coverage that I didn't see until I caught the CTV News tonight (something I don't ordinarily do)
Only 15 percent of online advertising goes to Canadian media. The other 85 percent goes to Facebook and Google, who don't get taxed on it.
If the money going back to Canadian media comes from there, I think it is fair, actually, so long as there is a guarantee it is going to wind up paying to hire journalists.
I might like that idea if I get to chose the news media that gets the money. If it is going to the papers that Greenspon worked at I am not interested.
There is a new generation of internet spin wizards with a new level of deceit that puts the previous generation of corporatist media hacks to shame. Even the hacks of the previous era had a limit -- they woudl distort and select rather than fabricate out of nothing.
You will see people with a longing for the old liars the more they get aquainted with the new ones.
There was a certainly professionalism to the nastiness of the past. I don't think this is an improvement.
I think this Media Watch article is very good.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/media-watch/2017/01/greenspon-report-cor...
Yup. I share that concern, especially since their strategy only made the problem worse. But even without their profit-grabbing there is a definite crisis.
For that matter, I wouldn't trust it if it was in the hands of government or some committee either. Nor do I trust the notion that CBC should become a news service so they have even less incentive to do their jobs.
But those advertising numbers don't lie. We are already being ripped off by even bigger corporate thieves.
Solving a theft problem by a bigger thief doesn't usually mean giving the keys to the safe to a thief who used to steal more but has now fallen on hard times. The US corporations who are so prevalent on the internet are doing to us what the big media and cable companies have been doing to us for a very long time.
Sure. Then tax them on it.
Yup figuring out how to tax companies on the internet is really a global problem.
Yes, it is a problem.
But considering the bigger problem is that the only revenue left to media is being sucked up by foreign social media companies which are outside our jurisdiction, there has to be some sort of solution.
HST/GST remittances from non-Canadian businesses is probably coming. It will cause headaches for some (including Cdns since it is, after all, a consumption tax) but not Google and FB. They already deal with it in other jurisdictions.
What it won't do is go anywhere other than general revenue as "Shattered Mirror" would have it do. A dedicated tax to fund the media is a pipe dream.
If only for the reason that that revenue isn't the only issue - on the problem or solution side - I realize that it isn't as simple as a formal transfer. After all, they also want more cbc funding to offset the m getting out of the ad market, and to become an open news service. Again, not a good idea because it will be less of a reason to have more journalists.
Also when one considers how much of the extra work journalists have been doing is BECAUSE of government, the federal in particular. Consider how much time and expense media have incurred making access to information requests and challenges.
On the one hand the field would probably be more balanced if the lions share of this effort went to small independent media (and some of it should). But there is also the problem of investigative work which requires a lot of time and a lot of money, which only larger media are capable of sustaining.
Now if there was an association of independent media which had the critical mass to take on this kind of work....
I assume that Facebook (just for example) pays taxes... in the jurisdiction in which its physically located.
But do you mean that they should pay taxes in any country that can access Facebook? If so, why? Someone in Australia might be able to access and use Facebook, but it's not as though Facebook is consuming any Australian resources that it needs to pay for.
Yes the current popular theory that FB and Google don't pay taxes is drivel.
They pay corporate taxes just like any other company, depending on their primary jurisdiction. Their national subsidiaries here are mostly HR vehicles to push their products - not make them - and they pay the taxes associated with employing people and consuming things on their behalf.
http://www.taxfairness.ca/en/news/what-facebook-really-thinks-canada
Thing is, the current business activities form already includes declaring websites which you use to generate revenue.
I think the issue is that Google and Facebook make their living off advertising, in one form or another. Thus, their product is consumer impressions, which they sell to advertisers. Without the users, they would have no revenue, with the users they make pots of money. If, say, 5% of FB's revenue comes from impressions by consumers in Australia, then it sounds quite reasonable to me that Australia might claim the right to tax that revenue.
That's just bizarre.
If I, a Canadian, watch a web video with an ad for some Bulgarian car dealership, YouTube (let's say) should have to pay Bulgaria some munnee because I watched their ad, and might go to Sofia to buy my next car?
Here's a thought: what if any country that resents YT or FB or IG or whoever for offering "their" people advertisements just goes ahead and bans YT or FB or IG?
Also, last I heard, the taxes we pay support our schools, and our roads, and our fire departments and suchlike. Are we going to provide schools and roads and fire services to internet companies in other countries? Or else what are their taxes paying for, besides our desire for more tax revenues?
Bizarre is in the eye of the beholder. It seems perfectly reasonable to me, and your arguments seem bizarre.
Also, you may have noticed that you do not see ads on internet sites for Bulgarian car dealerships, you see them for TD Canada Trust or Kellie Leitch. All the ads sold by these big internet companies are geographically targetted, not just by country, but also by much finer divisions.
And one more thing. In your hypothetical, the tax revenue would go to Canada, not Bulgaria, because the eyeballs involved (yours) were Canadian. Bad deal for the Bulgarian car dealer, but that's not Canada's problem.
Can you tell us why a foreign country, whose website features adversisements, should pay taxes in Canada if Canadians look at that website?
Is it for fire services? Health care? Their Canadian pension?
What are they paying for, Michael?
Don't say "Canadian eyeballs" -- those are completely voluntary. The internet is like the moon now -- we can all look at it.
Well, here's the deal. The transaction that earns the money for FB is the viewing of an ad, by a Canadian, in Canada. If you were to ask Canadians in a poll "Do you think it would be fair for Facebook to pay part of the revenue it earns by showing you ads to the Canadian government, to pay for healthcare and other services?" I'm betting that a pretty big majority would answer "yes". You may disagree, and it would be interesting to see an actual poll on this question.
Theoretically, the government could shut off FB if they refused to pay such a tax. It would no doubt be political suicide to do so, but in the hypothetical case of total solidarity by Canadian consumers, I'm quite sure that FB would be willing to pay some rate to continue showing ads in Canada. Optimizing profit would demand it.
@ Mr MacGoo
If the Bulgarian company is seen here with Bulgarian ads from Bulgarian companies that were destined for Bulgarian viewers then no tax. If they sell ads here for Canadians by Canadian companies competing with other Candian companies in this market, then they are a multinational with a precence here and can pay tax here. Michael is right -- your argument is bizarre.
Just the same as if the Bulgarians send a car to Canada -- even if they are overseas to build it they will pay tax on its sales here and will have a presence here to sell it. Advertising is a service. If sold in this country we have the right to tax it just the same as every other good or service sold here. When it is competing with Canadian businesses, getting money from Canadian business, using Canadian publicly and privately funded internet infrastructure, providing content to Canadian viewers it can be justifiably taxed.
Now we can tax the internet access or we can tax the sale of advertising for these products. We can set a tax at any rate we like -- by activity or type so long as it does not discriminate against individual companies. I think we can tax a share of the ad revenue without any problem at all in terms of moral authority.
I just went on FB and the first ad is one for a car dealership in the city I happen to be visiting.
So no, it isn't "Bulgaria". And in many ways it is an offer as good if not better than what a lot of online Canadian media can offer.
And it isn't just advertising:
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/07/12/time-to-tax-and-re...
So I just read that article from California. I assume the star will now be paying California sales and income taxes?
If any substantial portion of the Star's advertising revenue came from California views, there would be a case for this, but since such revenue is almost certainly negligible, the matter is moot.
If government can tax the ad revenue of tv stations and networks, there is no reason in principle why it shouldn't be able to tax the same ads, delivered to the same consumers over tcp/ip.
The "bail out" has been in effect for decades. The CBC, the corporate so-called public broadcaster adveristing and all, a hulking skeleton of what might have been investigative journalism in the distant past -- most of what I see on CBC news is "analysis" which are opinion pieces by right-leaning pro-busyness writers, or "news" copied from corporatist news sources (with no comments allowed.) On the private-side is the buyout of practically all news sources to push out journalists and to put in place advertising in the form of so-called news to push the corporatist agenda -- propoganda, manufactured "news", and the dead corporatist mediascape.
The "bail out" is that the internet is run by a few large monoliths that are given everything on a silver platter. We pay astronomically high prices for dog-slow parted out copper. Public internet infrastructure could be full fiber-speed internet without caps, without restrictions, without filters, without speed limits and it would cost very little to free for Canadian citizens.
Trudeau promised to defund the huge give away to the dying fossil fuel industry. I don't see that promise happening anytime soon, he may have "mispoke" all of the promises he made to get the Liberals back in to power. The sinking corporate-media-ships need to be dismantled. I would like to see, at the very least, some funding for arts, culture, and investigative journalism going directly to arists and journalists.