CBC calls for site-blocking provisions for ‘manipulated content’

CBC/Radio-Canada wants the federal government to grant the CRTC the ability to issue orders requiring ISPs to block websites sharing “manipulated content, including news,” as well as pirated content. It’s also asking Ottawa to force ISPs to contribute funds to Canadian programming content and have foreign over-the-top services like Netflix Inc. do the same, according to its submission to the Liberal government’s review panel tapped to study Canada’s communications laws with an eye to the future. “CBC/Radio-Canada is proposing a mechanism to permit the CRTC to issue orders requiring Canadian telecommunications carriers and telecommunications service providers, including ISPs to take actions such as the blocking of websites that disseminate manipulated content, including news,” the submission says. The submission only makes a brief mention of it, but CBC spokesperson Douglas Chow confirmed that stems from a concern about news content, including CBC’s own, being manipulated. “To date, we have seen crude examples of people hijacking our brand to make fake content. The quality of these efforts is anticipated to dramatically improve, and the quantity of fake files is anticipated to increase. We're building defensive systems in anticipation of this issue in order to defend the integrity of our brand and Canadians' confidence in our news stories,” Chow said in an email. That proposal comes as societal and political concerns in Canada and around the world abound about a proliferation of fake news stories circulated for political and disinformation purposes. It also lands amid more recent worries about soon-to-be readily-available consumer-grade ‘deep fake’ video software -- that is, video or audio manipulated by using ‘deep learning’ applications to create convincing fakes. CBC was also part of the FairPlay Coalition, which had proposed to the CRTC that the regulator should be able to order ISPs to block sites over copyright infringement. The CRTC decided this fall that it lacks the jurisdiction to bring that kind of regime in on its own, thereby punting the politically-charged request for others to decide on. CBC’s submission, published Friday, also asks to force ISPs and wireless providers to pay a “small fixed percentage” of their revenues to Canadian content creation, which it says would help create a “stable level of funding for Canadian programming into the future.” Its reasoning for that is ISPs are increasingly responsible for distributing “significant portions” of the programming accessed by Canadians. The proposal would be accomplished by adding telecom service providers into the Broadcasting Act, but the submission adds that the new contributions shouldn’t be done in a way that results in cost increases to consumers. “Sharing the costs of Canadian programming across a broader range of delivery systems should result in a decline in costs for some carriers and a more even distribution of the burden across platforms.” It asks to rope Canadian and foreign-based OTT services into the Broadcasting Act as well, and would have them make “equitable contributions to the production, promotion and discoverability of Canadian programming content.” CBC is itself competing in the streaming space, and has been recently heavily-marketing its freshly-branded English service called Gem (also the name of the CBC’s logo), which is available for free with ads, or ad-free with a subscription. The report notes Gem has 1.2 million monthly viewers, while its French streaming service ICI TOU.TV has a monthly average of 7 million. The submission also goes on at length about how the corporation needs stable funding as it transitions from legacy linear broadcast services to digital services, and notes that sustaining both has put “tremendous pressure” on its finances -- a problem that big, global digital companies “do not face.” “With the limited resources we have we must continue to prepare for the day when we are a digital-only company,” it said. Former Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly announced the start of the government’s blue ribbon review panel last summer. She said at the time it would examine how to modernize Canada’s communications laws and “find solutions” that would ensure all companies “pay their fair share” without raising costs for consumers. Friday is the deadline for written submissions to the panel. The CRTC published its own submission Thursday. The group of experts reviewing the legal framework for Canada’s communications sector has already met with more than one hundred stakeholders, ranging from Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. to Blue Ant Media Inc. and Canadian ISPs including Telus Corp. and BCE Inc. — With reporting by Kyle Duggan at kduggan@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

CBC calls for site-blocking provisions for ‘manipulated content’

News | 01/11/2019 4:09 pm EST

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