Podcast
Root Causes 340: Is This Podcast Canadian Enough?
Hosted by
Jason Soroko
Fellow
Original broadcast date
November 6, 2023
Canada's Online Streaming Act will require internet content providers to provide a minimum percentage of content produced by Canadians or face fines. We explore this latest episode in the theme of governments attempting to control the free flow of information on the internet.
Podcast transcript
Lightly edited for flow and brevity.
TCTim CallanThe title of our podcast today is, Is This Podcast Canadian Enough. There is a news item and I’m looking at - - the date on this was - - I don’t have the precise date but early October 2023 and basically, there is an Act in Canada called the Online Streaming Act and I believe the Online Streaming Act operates pretty similar to the way CanCon operates. So we probably explain CanCon, which is that for people who are podcasting or I think maybe it includes YouTube channels and things like that, there is a certain requirement for Canadian content to be included if you are recording these things in the Canadian market and if not, you have to pay some extra money. Am I getting that right?
Jason SorokoLook, a lot of people know that in Canada, you turn on the radio, it’s almost the law that you have to listen to Tragically Hip every 30 minutes or otherwise - -TCTim CallanOr Bachman–Turner Overdrive.
Jason SorokoRight.TCTim CallanGuess who, guess who.
Jason SorokoBut ironically, not so much - - you will hear Bryan Adams, but not all of his albums count as Canadian content. So, there you go. Figure that one out.TCTim CallanSo, there’s a law or rule in Canada they call Can-Con, which is that a certain amount of broadcast content - and traditionally, in the old days this was television and radio - had to be produced by Canadians and, it was I think, I believe, the point was to preserve Canadian identity rather than being overwhelmed by U.S.-based media. We see this now going into the world of streaming where there now are rules that apply a similar thing to online streaming services. Is that right?
Jason SorokoThat is the case. Yes, sir.TCTim CallanOf course, I see this as another aspect of a theme that you and I keep touching on this show which is government versus the media. Sorry – government versus the internet. And we’ve seen this in terms of governments trying to extract money for people linking in. We’ve seen this in terms of governments trying to control what you can publish online or where you navigate to. We’ve seen this is in terms of governments trying to set themselves up as kind of men-in-the-middle using encryption-based technologies or root certificate-based approaches and in every one of these cases, it comes back to this idea that governments want to control the free use and speech of the internet and this something that I’ve just fundamentally against.
Jason SorokoLook, you notice I haven’t said much so far in this podcast and there’s a reason for that. It’s because you are sitting in the United States and trying freedom of speech - -TCTim CallanExactly. I’m safe.
Jason SorokoI’m supposed to be bound by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms but that’s kind of been under attack over the last little while. It always has been but it’s gotten worse and, hey, look, the elephant in the room is the folks who looked at this and basically said, look, this basically amounts to censorship but, on the other hand, if you really look at the letter of the law the way that it’s written, the way that it’s supposed to be intended, is podcast organizations, right - - if we were an individual podcaster making heaps of money, just heaps and heaps of money and I forget exactly what the cutoff amount of dollars were, then if you are serving any kind of podcasts at all, whether it’s an aggregated podcast service or you are an individual podcaster, you will be bound by these laws. If you were just on your own, the issue is that you are also probably aggregating, using an aggregation service, just like we do, Tim, right?
Apple, Apple podcasts, SoundCloud, etc. Any of these streaming services that make over a certain amount of revenue that have any kind of podcasts, will need to register those. Will basically need to register. And, the first glance at that is, hey, this basically could lead to censorship of some kind. It will lead to something probably because the CRTC in Canada makes it really clear - What you hear on the radio is affected by what the CRTC prescribes should be on the radio.
TCTim CallanOh yeah. Absolutely.
Jason SorokoAnd so, why wouldn’t it then be same thing with television and now, of course, streaming services including all the way down to podcasts. And perhaps even this podcast. Who knows? What I’m not gonna do on this podcast is get into the crazy real conspiracy stuff that might be going on underneath all of this. To repeat what you are saying, which is, once again, the government – all governments - it’s not just in Canada but all governments, seem to just have this insatiable desire to control what happens on their patch of the internet. Somehow that’s how they think of it and on their patch of the internet they want to be able to put their stamp on it. You made the outright statement of you disagree with that. My statement is, that’s just really awfully difficult to do.
TCTim CallanRight. So, one of the other things we talk about whenever we get to the story is we mention this kind of, this fundamental misunderstanding that governments seem to have about what they are and what the internet is and the fact that the internet doesn’t exist inside their borders. That having physical borders with land and buildings and humans and resources is different than having this global cloud of information. And that you can’t say that that information and that activity is residing or going on inside of your borders and when you try to do that you are just misunderstanding how all of this works. In a real basic way. And in some ways it’s also misunderstanding the relationship of their citizens with these services. So, one of the consequences that we’ve seen is we’ve seen threats of major tech companies to just remove their services from certain geographies or in some cases, that actually happening. And I think you’ve mentioned in the past on this podcast that you can’t use Google Bard, right? By way of example?
Jason SorokoCannot use Google Bard in Canada as of right now. Also, try to get news on any of the big social media networks in Canada right now. These are things that, you know, arguments between big U.S. tech and the Canadian Government. So, this is happening in real time as we speak and it is directly caused by government policies and the reaction from the Big Tech industry. I mean it takes two to tango and both are playing right now.TCTim CallanWhen I go back to I’d say, well, how is this in the best interest of the average Canadian citizen? How does a person who wants to get news or wants to use a service like Google Bard or at one point Facebook was threatening to pull out of Australia, how does the average Australian benefit from not having Facebook? And they don’t, right? Because they have this I would say very ill-considered approach, this approach that doesn’t understand the fundamental nature and relationship of what these services are and what they do, what they wind up doing at the end of the day is they make their own residence or their own citizens’ lives worse. And that’s the real outcome. And they shouldn’t do it. It’s just a bad idea. With a bad result. Pure and simple. And, of course, it’s not workable as you said.
Jason SorokoFor sure, Tim. Hey, you are the one with freedom of speech so I’ll let you run with that.TCTim CallanThat’s right. I can say whatever I want. The mounties won’t come get me here. But, I mean that’s my opinion. That this is just something, this is a practice that doesn’t really carry benefit and absolutely does harm to the people that the government is supposed to be here to serve.
Jason SorokoLet’s just push this into a dystopian future. Maybe this is the wrong thing to do, but if you are gonna talk about this at all, let’s talk about this on this podcast. You and I on this topic of governments versus the internet, have brought up governments versus encryption quite often. That’s been a common topic for us. I’m gonna make three jokes in one here, Tim. Watch this. What happens if one day we actually do that podcast on PGP encryption and you and I actually give out prescriptive advice on how to do encryption using PGP technology.
Now imagine if policies come into place within let’s say Canada or listeners in New Zealand, you know, as an example where these kinds of things were actively talked about and encryption technology in the hands of the average person is considered to be a bad thing. A bad thing to the point of it’s banned. Imagine if our sweet little podcast – which is just giving, hey, this is how to work it. This is how to do it.
TCTim CallanThis is what it does.
Jason SorokoHere’s how to take absolutely open source, available to you encryption technology and encrypt a secret very well to someone else. What happens if advice like that on a podcast becomes something that governments go to war against?TCTim CallanBecause it’s essentially illegal or subject to punishment.
Jason SorokoWhat happens if encryption becomes un-Canadian one day, right? Who knows? I’m certain if you listen to us in other jurisdictions where encryption is illegal, well, son of a gun, maybe you might be in trouble for listening to good ‘ol Tim and I. But what scares me is that these kinds of legislation they tend to lend themselves. It’s not about just having enough Tragically Hip playing in the background. This could be about things that governments consider to be really strategically for purposes of national security, whatever excuse they want to come up with, they could deem some of the things we are talking about as just being wrong. And if you are registered as a podcast, people might think, well, why would they sensor such as basic thing? Well, who knows. Who knows what kinds of war that governments will wage against simple kinds of information like we try to give on this podcast.TCTim CallanAbsolutely. The other thing that’s connected to that is there’s a certain set of governments that you’re kind of not surprised about and if you go back, way back to our first year of podcasting, we talked about Kazakhstan trying to create this root and force this sort of, enable this man-in-the-middle kind of thing. That’s sort of what you expect from a government like Kazakhstan. But a lot of this is stuff is places that we traditionally think of as being very strong in defending freedoms.
Jason SorokoExactly.TCTim CallanCanada, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, the U.K.
Jason SorokoThe U.K. There’s the five right there.TCTim CallanThat’s also the one where you go, wow. Like these are the places where you would think they would get the internet, they’d understand what it was about, they’d understand the value of a free internet, they’d understand where they wouldn’t interfere with this stuff and yet, not true. It’s happening and it’s been an ongoing cadence for as long as you and I have been operating this podcast and before and I predict that if we operate this podcast for another 300 episodes, it will still be something that is going on.
Jason SorokoIt probably will be, Tim. I think that’s the likely outcome is that the threats to the freedom of the internet will always be there from governments and even the governments that you don’t expect to be a threat. I think encryption will continue to be threatened and even just simple information about ideas such as encryption and technologies surrounding it might also end up being under attack at some point. It’s really something.TCTim CallanIt’s really something.
Jason SorokoBut there it is.TCTim CallanAlright. Well, Jason, I hope you don’t get in trouble for this episode.
Jason SorokoOh, I probably am.Stay informed with expert insights
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