Lisa Sygutek: Canadians have the power to fight back against Big Tech

National Post

21 hours ago

Recently, I was a panellist at the Canadian Association of Journalists conference in Calgary. The session was titled, 'Local Journalism in the Age of Cutbacks.' A great headline, sure, but that's not why I was there. I was there to talk about our $8-billion class-action lawsuit against digital advertising giants Google and Facebook.
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Alongside Sotos LLP, I launched a national class-action lawsuit in 2022. I'm the representative plaintiff in a case filed in the Federal Court of Canada on behalf of all Canadian newspaper publishers, big and small, independent and chain owned. We allege that Google and Facebook have engaged in anti-competitive practices in digital advertising and siphoned billions in ad revenue from Canadian journalism.
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If we really want to talk about cutbacks, then let's talk about what's causing them. The bleed of advertising dollars away from Canadian newsrooms and straight into the pockets of two unregulated tech giants is the reason we are all hurting. We can't stop the drain without getting to the root of the problem. That's what this lawsuit is about.
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Our case is one of the first of its kind in the world. Countries like Australia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have also picked up the cause, some with their own legal action, others with groundbreaking legislation forcing Big Tech to pay for journalism.
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On that panel in Calgary, I listened to a lot of 'woe is me.' Stories of shrinking newsrooms. Struggles to retain talent. Frustrations over government ad policy. It was the same old tune. The media in this country has become far too comfortable living with a victim mentality.
Well, I am nobody's victim. I'm a fighter. And it's time our industry remembered how to fight, too. What I didn't hear on that stage was resolve. What I didn't hear was fire. We've become so used to decline that we've forgotten how to push back and stand tall.
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We forgot that newspapers aren't just businesses. We're institutions. We are the watchdogs. The check and balance. The public record. And somewhere along the way, we let Silicon Valley billionaires convince us we didn't matter anymore.
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Well, I haven't forgotten. And I haven't given up.