Should we be concerned that the CRTC is co-hosting an event to explore “Discoverability: Content in the Age of Abundance”?
As I wrote last month, the current CRTC Chair continues to insist that the Commission regulates internet content. As he repeatedly told a witness in the Local TV hearing in January, streaming video on the internet (such as Netflix and YouTube, is considered to be unlicensed, not unregulated.
In the recent “Review of basic telecommunications services“, the Chair said he likes to look at outcomes:
when you set large national objectives you start off defining the outcomes and then you — which is the strategy — and then you define specific actions required. But you actually have to figure out what the outcome is and then work backwards.
So what is the outcome that is being sought through the Discoverability project? We have seen announcements that say “The Summit will be a forum for learning and creative discussions with respect to new strategies, tools and approaches to tackle the challenge of discoverability.”
Is that the outcome? Is the ultimate outcome to hold a forum and issue some kind of a report or strategy document? Or, is the outcome to develop new strategies for tackling the challenge of discoverability? If the latter, what is the outcome being sought? In the Chair’s own words, “you actually have to figure out what the outcome is and then work backwards.”
Was the intent for a “strategy” to be the outcome? It would fit what Terence Corcoran called Canada’s National Strategies Strategy:
A National Strategies Strategy would aim to bring together all Canadian stakeholders, perhaps at a foundational event or summit, for cross-disciplinary strategy-setting that would devise evidence-based intelligence on how Canada — as a diverse nation — can set up a system that would allow our best minds, institutions and diverse cultural communities to establish a national strategic hierarchy of strategies.
So, what is the outcome being sought through the Discoverability project? What is the role of the regulator in this process? Is “Content in the Age of Abundance” a euphemism for “Content in the age of the Internet”? Will the forum be an opportunity for Canada’s telecommunications and broadcast regulator to reinforce its assertion of authority to regulate internet content? Should we be concerned?