Canada Wants YouTube, TikTok to Prioritize Canadian Content
https://www.wsj.comCanada wants to force YouTube, TikTok and other video- and audio-sharing sites to prominently feature more of the country’s artists.
The aim to promote domestic content on the sites is a step in the Canadian government’s multipronged effort to get the world’s biggest digital companies to contribute more financially to the country’s economy.
The content proposal, unveiled last month, has generated criticism from rival politicians, law professors and net-neutrality advocates, who argue it is akin to an attack on free speech.
According to legal experts who have reviewed the proposal, Canada could compel YouTube, TikTok and other sites to rewrite their algorithms—which tend to match viewers with videos based on their individual interests—to give Canadian content preference over foreign-made content whenever a user with a Canadian internet-protocol address types in a search or pulls up such a site.
Steven Guilbeault, the Canadian minister in charge of cultural policy, said the government has no intention to censor or regulate individuals who upload content to social-media platforms.