Photo: The Canadian Press A visitor takes a photo at the TikTok exhibition booths at the Gamescom computer gaming exhibition in Cologne, Germany, Thursday, August 25, 2022. Online streaming giants YouTube and TikTok are asking Canadian senators to take a second look at an online streaming bill that they say it would cause significant harm to Canadian digital creators. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Martin Meissner Streaming giants YouTube and TikTok are asking Canadian senators to take a second look at a streaming bill they say would significantly harm Canadian digital content creators. TikTok executive Steve de Eyre told a Senate committee meeting that the federal Liberals’ Bill C-11 not only fails to protect digital creators from regulation, but causes them collateral damage. He says the Senate should more specifically exclude user-generated content from the bill and consider rules on how to identify Canadian content, saying much of the content Canadians create on TikTok will not qualify as such. YouTube executive Jeanette Patell told senators the bill gives too much discretion to Canada’s broadcasting regulators to make demands on user-generated content. It says the provision that the regulator can look into whether someone has directly or indirectly monetised the content will affect “essentially everything” on the platform. He also warned that the regulator could require changes to the company’s algorithms, echoing concerns expressed by music streaming giant Spotify during a hearing last week.
