Canada To Compel YouTube, TikTok and Streamers To Boost Domestic Content

Canada approved legislation that targets what video- and audio-sharing platforms like YouTube and TikTok can broadcast to a Canadian audience, as the country follows in Europe's footsteps in imposing a heftier regulatory burden on the digital sector. From a report: This marks the second attempt in as many years by Canada's Liberal government to compel digital platforms, including streaming companies like Netflix, to prominently feature Canadian artists on their services when users with a Canadian internet-protocol address log in. As contemplated under the new measures, users who search for music, television programming, films or do-it-yourself video shorts would get results incorporating a certain quota of Canadian-made content.

YouTube, a unit of Alphabet, TikTok, and the big streaming companies, among them Netflix, as well as legal experts and some Canadian artists, have either opposed Canada's move or warned of unintended consequences -- such as hurting the people the new policy is intended to help. Countries like Canada are increasingly turning to regulatory changes to protect domestic interests in light of the big inroads the world's biggest digital companies have made in transforming how households watch programs, listen to music, conduct day-to-day business and consume news.

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