It looks like a case of “do what I say, not do what I do.”.Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault railed on this week about the Liberal government spending too much money on digital advertising. In fact, he said the department will cut their amount of digital ads..“We need to change this,” Guilbeault said..But a look at Guilbeault’s personal spending shows he is giving digital companies big bucks..Michael Geist, a much-respected law professor at the University of Ottawa, found that during the last election campaign, Guilbeault personally ran 54 ads on Facebook, allocating over $10,000 toward the digital ad campaign..“Guilbeault advertised on Facebook promoting pre-budget consultations in his constituency. Nothing wrong with making constituents aware of a policy process, but a curious decision given his comments on Facebook advertising,” Geist said..“More difficult is Guilbeault’s regular posting of news articles and videos on Facebook, where over the past year he has shared more than a dozen articles and posted at least ten videos that use third-party broadcaster content. The shared articles come from a wide range of news sources, including the Journal de Montreal, La Presse, Global News, and the Toronto Star. Given that there was no payment for these links, one wonders if Guilbeault thinks these are also immoral.”.“The video use raises more questions. Rather than post links, Guilbeault has at times made a copy of the video and posted it directly to Facebook. For example, this post features his full appearance on Tout le Monde en Parle..“The segment is available online and could be linked, but Guilbeault instead made a copy of the 14-minute appearance and uploaded it himself, thereby denying the referral to the original broadcaster. Did he obtain permission or a licence? Does he think that posting a full 14-minute video is fair dealing? In fact, he’s done the same thing many times, including to videos he has copied and uploaded where he is criticizing the Internet platforms for their practices..“Perhaps a closer examination of his own social media practices are in order.”.Facebook announced in February it has blocked Australians from viewing and sharing all news on its platform because of proposed laws to make companies like it and Google pay an effective tax to media companies when users share their content. .It is the same bailout model that big Canadian mainstream media companies are demanding from Ottawa..Under the new Facebook policy, Australian web surfers can no longer share content from domestic or international news sources. In other parts of the world, users can’t share news from Australian sources..Guilbeault said Canada is unmoved and will continue with legislation requiring social-media platforms fund news..“I must condemn what Facebook is doing,” he said..“I think what Facebook is doing in Australia is highly irresponsible and compromises the safety of many Australian people.”.Most mainstream media newspapers across Canada went to press last month with nothing on their front pages – part of a campaign asking the federal government to start taxing Google and Facebook and pass the revenue on to them. Postmedia newspapers and the Toronto Star all went without pictures or headlines on their front page..The Western Standard did not participate in the demand for more government money. In place of low-value Google Ads, the Western Standard is moving to sell ad placements directly to businesses and non-profits..Canadian mainstream media outlets have been the recipients of $600 million in federal Liberal handouts since 2018..The Western Standard refuses to accept the federal media bailout..Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard.dnaylor@westernstandardonline.com.Twitter.com/nobby7694
