You actually made the argument for the bill, and then twisted it to justify Facebook and Google's domination of the ad market.

The specific problem they're solving is that that there's a majority of Facebook users who get their news from Facebook, and probably the majority of those users don't actually click through, so the news organizations get no money. Facebook and their users are benefitting from getting headlines, but the companies incurring all the costs to generate those headlines are getting too little money from that to sustain themselves. This is why this bill has to exist and why it's necessary to protect Canadian news organizations.

We all have requirements regarding local news

"Well all" meaning broadcasters. That is the deal in exchange for using public airwaves.

Facebook doesn't broadcast over public airwaves...

I think they are, but understand that the dynamics of the situation are different within the North American context.

By all means, elaborate.

Why is that?

The bill the Canada government passed (with pressure from Canadian news agencies) will only effect Canadians for the time being.

Right now for example trying to find a link to Canadian News on a few social media sites is getting hard. We still have the option of going direct to our news sites (though not sure if search engine will also be required to remove links to Canadian news sites).

For this to effect the US a similar bill would need to be passed.

I think this is unclear, as the CRTC isn't expected to have the actual policies developed until sometime next year.

However, this is in the text of the bill:

6 This Act applies in respect of a digital news intermediary if, having regard to the following factors, there is a significant bargaining power imbalance between its operator and news businesses:

(a) the size of the intermediary or the operator;

(b) whether the market for the intermediary gives the operator a strategic advantage over news businesses; and

(c) whether the intermediary occupies a prominent market position.

I can't imagine this ever applying to decentralized social media.

I assume the server instance and the user would both have to be in the country. But I don’t think lemmy instances are making money off of their users that I know of.

The bills objective is to give journalists compensation for their work. I think Lemmy actually promotes this because people click on the links to try to read the article directly, instead of viewing them through a social media platform acting as a middleman.

Could you imagine if you or your grandmother had to pay a dollar to post a link to a Canadian article on a social media site.