I’m watching with amusement, wondering who will blink first.

The Government of Canada has pulled its advertising from Facebook and Google in protest of those companies decision to drop all Canadian news content. Other advertisers are following suit.

The issue is recent legislation forcing tech companies to pay for links to news content. The tech companies think this is free advertising, and don’t see why they should pay for offering that. Traditional media companies are crying poverty. Advertisers have fled them for Facebook and Google.

The legislation is problematic. The rate per click is yet to be established. And there is nothing to stop the media companies from posting links to their content and thereby forcing the tech companies to pay them. Yes, that would be contrary to the spirit of the law, but given the social climate these days…

I still haven’t figured out why the government is meddling in what should be a transaction between two companies. The media corporations copyright their material. They could stick their content behind a paywall instead of giving it away for free like they have done since the inception of the world wide web.

They have lawyers, they could sue anyone who takes their material without compensation. The tech companies are big and also have expensive lawyers – but they know they would lose such a case; they would have settled.

Instead the government has interjected itself into the equation and now those looking for Canadian news on Facebook and Google are about to lose it.

Which may not be a bad thing. Being directed to foreign news sources may widen people’s perspective. And it won’t be that you can’t find Canadian news online, you’ll just have to go directly to the source. That works for me – I already get my Canadian news from some trusted sites. I don’t need a search engine. (Full disclosure – I never look for news on Facebook, and use Google for news only if I am researching something specific and wish to double check a source.)

Facebook and Google, with their algorithms, have a tendency to feed you a particular slant. The learn what you like and give you more of it.

Which may be fine of you are looking for videos of kittens or puppies playing, but isn’t as good an idea of you are looking for news coverage. We need to hear all sides of the stories and issues of the day, not just have our biases reinforced. Or is my belief in the importance of objective, impartial, journalism giving me myopia?

The odds are pretty good that someone will back down. The tech companies will offer a compromise, or maybe the government will blink first

For the sake of Canadians learning about the world around them, I rather hope the standoff lasts a long time