Canada has been left out of a recent expansion of Google’s artificial intelligence-powered chatbot known as Bard as the big tech giant continues its fight with the federal government over the Online News Act.
No loss for me. I don’t give a rat’s ass about AI chatbots. And I myself have excluded Google from my online activities. I use Debian Linux. My phone has LineageOS without Google Play Services – instead I use apps from f-droid, including OsmAnd~ for mapping. I never use Google search (I rely on DuckDuckGo). Any YouTube videos I may wish to view I use either FreeTube or Invidious (the latter via the Firefox addon LibRedirect). For translation, it’s LibreTranslate. If I wish to see news articles I’ll go directly to media sites such as The Star, The Globe and Mail, CBC, or via the news search on DuckDuckGo. Anyone who is still allowing themselves to be a product of Google is misguided, as far as I’m concerned.
Oh dear. A megacorporation who is noted for not following rules or respecting boundaries is going to lock Canada out.
How can we help all countries match this feat?
Don’t care. Google is also being a baby and blocking Canadians from Canadian news.
Perhaps we should all move away from Google? They clearly can’t be trusted when their response to pay Canadian journalists for rehosting their content is “nah, we instead are going to block Canadian news”.
I don’t think it’s unfair to pay someone when you’re rehosting their stuff or driving away clicks by giving an article summary. Especially when there’s no Google without links. Just like Reddit doesn’t work without users submitting content. Not to mention it’s bold to play this game when there are plenty of Google alternatives now.
If you want to move away from google there are plenty of people on fedi who can help.
I switched to duck duck go a year ago and honestly I get my news quicker and more reliably from Lemmy, TikTok, and previously Reddit.
It’s actually scary how much I see from 50 different angles on TikTok before any news outlet even covers it, if even. Saw a stabbing in Toronto from multiple angles a few HOURS before I even seen an article about it.
I know Lemmy hates TikTok, but can’t deny it’s great for being up to date ASAP when it comes to news. At least for right now.
DDG which uses Bing to power its results will also have to comply by the same law or drop Canadian news results if they don’t want to negotiate and pay.
Right. Which isn’t DDG wrongdoing. I’m not going to give DDG a strike for being caught in the crossfire.
I’m already only using the basic necessities from Microsoft because they are a shit company, just like the rest lol.
But we will also see what Microsoft does. They may comply and make Google look even more childish.
Didn’t the C18 specifically name google and meta?
The bill itself doesn’t name any specific company. It has a clause saying that the CRTC will publish and maintain a list of “digital news intermediaries” to which the contents of the bill apply. The official list isn’t yet available.
Ahhh, misunderstood the article I read then
The Bard exclusion isn’t due to the news thing; it’s due to Canada having privacy laws and a privacy watchdog that actually pays attention. If Google expanded to Canada, they’d have to answer a bunch of questions it appears they’d rather avoid.
I was under the impression that the EU has pretty strict privacy laws and oversight. Is Canada stricter?
Not strict enough. Should be better we need a GDPR
The Canadian privacy watchdog does things? I doubt bard is any more data invasive than meta platforms and they get a pass…
