Facebook sells powerful advertisement products to governments, companies and individuals, thanks the collection, analysis and prediction of our behaviour through sophisticated technologies.
The Canadian government spent more than 24 million dollars in advertisements and sponsored content on Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram between January 2016 and March 2018. In 2018-2019, they spent a grand total of 52 million across big tech firms, “where no tax is collected.” That’s almost 5 times the amount spent in domestic media companies.
In Québec (8 million people), the provincial government spent 2.5 million dollars in ads at Facebook in 2018 and almost as much the year after.
Thanks to offshore deals, Facebook does tax avoidance, in the United States (where the company’s headquarters are located) and elsewhere.
By paying little to no tax and by avoiding fiscal policies despite their stratospheric revenues, companies such as Facebook prevent governments from earning hundreds of millions of dollars—the same governments who are also paying customers.