A French news agency is suing X/Twitter over its "clear refusal" to pay compensation..On Wednesday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) accused the social media company of failing to adhere to a local law that requires online platforms to pay news publishers for displaying their content..AFP said the case aims to force X/Twitter to hand over data that will allow the agency to estimate a fair level of compensation.."This is bizarre," said X/Twitter owner Elon Musk.."They want us to pay 'them' for traffic to their site where they make advertising revenue and we don’t!?.AFP said it filed the suit before the Judicial Court of Paris in an attempt to compel X/Twitter “to provide all the necessary elements required for assessing the remuneration owed” to the publisher under French law..AFP said its lawsuit is in response to X/Twitter’s “clear refusal…to enter into discussions regarding the implementation of neighbouring rights for the press.”.Twitter users were quick to fire back in response to Musk's tweet.."Canada's greedy government wants to do the same," said Cory Morgan of the Western Standard.."They’re trying to go down the same path as Australia and Canada, lobbying their respective governments for cash from search engines and social networks," tweeted another user.."Give them nothing. They will become irrelevant. Their dying model is unsustainable.".The news agency said it would “Continue to employ the appropriate legal means” with online platforms to ensure “Fair distribution” of value generated from sharing news content..It was reported that both Google and Facebook have inked deals with French publishers over the past few years, to pay them for carrying their content..France adopted the EU copyright directive known as “neighboring rights” into law in 2019..This law aims to force online platforms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter to negotiate a licensing deal with news publishers for displaying their content on their platforms..READ MORE: BIG BROTHER: Poilievre takes Trudeau to task for internet ‘censorship’.Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre is laying the blame for the decision of Facebook’s parent company Meta to begin eliminating Canadian news sites from its social media platforms squarely on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau..Speaking outside the House of Commons in Ottawa on Tuesday, the Conservative leader compared the prime minister to George Orwell’s Big Brother’s nefarious attempts to literally erase history..“It’s like Nineteen Eighty-four,” he said. “You have a prime minister passing a law to make news articles disappear (emphasis his) from the internet. Who would have ever imagined, in Canada, that the federal government would pass laws banning people from effectively seeing the news?”.If elected prime minister, Poilievre vowed to promote free speech “online, on campus and anywhere else in this country.”.“Whether it’s Big Tech, or Trudeau’s Big Government, censorship is always and everywhere, wrong,” he continued. “Because I believe I can win an open debate anywhere in this country, and unlike Trudeau, I will not need to censor.”Meta said Tuesday that within a few weeks, it will remove news for all Canadian users of its popular Facebook and Instagram platforms.READ MORE: Fildebrandt testifies before Senate about gov’t interference in news mediaDerek Fildebrandt, publisher, president and CEO of Western Standard New Media Corp., spoke to a Senate committee in May about his concerns and objections to a Bill C-18 affecting the funding of news media organizations.Fildebrandt told the senators in Ottawa the Western Standard is “highly unlike the large corporate media that have lobbied for this bill.”“As a so-called 'Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization,' we are eligible to receive the full suite of taxpayer subsidies that media are now entitled to in Canada, but we refuse to accept them,” Fildebrandt told the committee.“We believe for media to be independent, we must be independent of the state.”Fildebrandt pointed out the Western Standard was a couple of people in 2019 sitting at a dining room table and now is “the most-read online publication in Alberta.”“We have a large newsroom in our Calgary headquarters, bustling with activity and breaking original stories every day,” said Fildebrandt."We have bureaus in Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina, and Ottawa.”“And we did it all without the help of the government,” said Fildebrandt.
