Meta blocks news on Facebook and Instagram in Canada
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, has taken a decisive step by blocking news content on its platforms for Canadian users. The move comes as a response to Canada's newly passed Online News Act, which aims to ensure fair revenue sharing between tech giants like Meta and Google and Canadian news outlets.
This legislation, similar to those previously proposed in Australia and California, has been a matter of contention, leading to a clash between Big Tech and Canadian news organizations.
The act in question
The Online News Act, or Bill C-18, is a piece of Canadian legislation passed by Parliament in June 2023. Its primary objective is to address the disruption caused by social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to the traditional news distribution model.
Under this act, tech companies are required to compensate news outlets for sharing links to their pages, thus ensuring a fair distribution of revenue. The law is set to take effect no later than 180 days from the date of royal assent.
Meta's bold decision
Meta has been vocal about its opposition to the Online News Act since its proposal in 2021. The company had threatened to block the sharing of Canadian news content unless the legislation was amended to align with its interests.
However, with the passage of the law by Canada's Senate and impending royal assent, Meta made good on its threat and officially blocked access to news content on both Facebook and Instagram for all Canadian users. The decision is a significant departure from engaging with Canadian lawmakers to comply with the new legislation.
Other media companies are also concerned
Both Meta and Google, another tech giant affected by the Online News Act, have expressed their concerns about the legislation. They argue that the act is unfair, unworkable, and amounts to a "tax on links".
According to Meta's spokesperson, the legislation wrongly assumes that social media companies disproportionately benefit from news content shared on their platforms. Instead, Meta asserts that news outlets voluntarily share content on social media to expand their audiences and support their bottom line. This friction between the tech giants and Canadian lawmakers highlights the power imbalance between platforms and publishers.
How will it affect Canadians?
Canadian journalists and news outlets have already started reporting on the adverse effects of Meta's decision. Local newsrooms, which were already vulnerable to the policies set by social media platforms, are now facing zero visibility on Facebook and Instagram.
Co-founder of The Rover, Christopher Curtis, has taken to Twitter to express their concerns, with one co-founder of a local newsletter calling the fight with Meta a threat to their livelihoods. This clash is a significant challenge for Canadian news outlets that heavily relied on social media platforms for news distribution.
Hello @PascaleStOnge_, I know it’s important to save big newspapers but those of us who aren’t owned by ??vampire hedge funds need to put food on the table for our families. This fight with Meta is making that harder and harder. Our livelihoods are at stake. pic.twitter.com/UVatQxIpRu
— Christopher Curtis (@titocurtis) July 31, 2023
As the regulatory process begins, Google and Meta have both stated their intent to remove news links in Canada before the law comes into full effect.
The Heritage Minister, Pablo Rodriguez, has emphasized that the government will engage in a regulatory and implementation process following royal assent. He calls on tech giants to work with the government to find a path forward and avoid a situation where news content is entirely removed. The government's role in resolving the conflict and maintaining fair revenue sharing remains crucial.
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@Honorius
Not “my” logic. Simply facts.
In any case seeing how you present your view I can respect it but I disagree with it. Facebook has been and continues to be the corporate bully it always was and if nobody stands up to its bullying everybody looses.
Have a nice day.
Correction:
/quote
“Although according to your logic, if Facebook is no longer syphoning news,”
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Should have appeared before
/quote
“Not “my” logic. Simply facts.”
quote/
I’m not at all in favor of Facebook and Google (quite the opposite – I think they’ve gone completely bonkers and do whatever they can think of), but this was a stupid law from the start and only stupid people could have passed it.
They made social networks and search engines pay for news from local news sites, and the search engines and social networks decided they just wouldn’t publish what they now had to pay for.
And rightly so. If I were now forced to pay for Twitter links, for example, I would simply never post links to Twitter, rather than run to pay. Who decided that the Canadian media is so necessary and irreplaceable to Facebook that they would choose the “pay” option?
Companies PAY to get their content (ads) on Facebook or at the top of the Google Search results. And now the Canadian government has decided to charge Facebook and Google for showing third-party (local news) content. What could go wrong? /s
@Honorius
The real factor behind this law is that, over the years, Facebook has siphoned most of the advertising revenue that, before Facebook, went to the news organizations. So news organizations got less and less advertising revenue and were eventually forced to lay off larger and larger portions of all their workforce, journalists included. Without most of the advertising revenue they once had, news organizations cannot pay their journalists, hence there’s eventually no news and, in the end, the organization goes bankrupt.
That’s the number one reason why this law was implemented. Facebook, while siphoning content from news websites without paying anything for something that costs money to these websites has made a major portion of news organizations behind these websites face bankruptcy for lack of revenue that Facebook took from them.
Facebook’s position is that they provided exposure to the news organizations that they siphoned content from but the exposure never provided enough benefit to compensate for the loss of revenue.
Australia has implemented a very similar law to the Canadian one and Facebook eventually complied with it. Facebook is trying the same thing it did in Australia. At first, it blocked news on its website in Australia but in the end, it came around and decide to share portions of its advertising revenue with the news organizations.
The future will tell if more countries will implement similar laws to what Australia and Canada have put up. But it most countries did what these two countries did, Facebook would eventually have most of its news content simply disappear, It would only return if Facebook finally decided to share its revenue with the original content creators, the news organizations.
> The real factor behind this law is that, over the years, Facebook has siphoned most of the advertising revenue that, before Facebook, went to the news organizations.
I perfectly understand WHY such a law was passed, but I also perfectly understand (and wrote it above) that such a law (in this form) could not work.
In addition, if news from these sites were not included in the output of Facebook and Google, then there would be no conversions to these news sites from Google and Facebook either. This means that these sites would have to somehow communicate their presence to the target audience and maintain this interest.
News from these sites would show up on some of the most visited sites in the world: facebook (and google). Now they don’t show up anymore.
> Facebook’s position is that they provided exposure to the news organizations that they siphoned content from but the exposure never provided enough benefit to compensate for the loss of revenue.
Well now that Facebook is no longer syphoning off those sites, everything should be great, right?
What could possibly go wrong? And those sites suddenly had a drop in visits. ORLY? No way! No one expected it! It’s never happened before and here it is again!
The people who lobbied for this law and passed it are professionally unfit. They should not be allowed to regulate the Internet any more than I should be allowed to regulate your teeth. The only difference between me and them is that I know roughly how much damage I can do and I don’t go into things I don’t know about.
>Australia has implemented a very similar law to the Canadian one and Facebook eventually complied with it. Facebook is trying the same thing it did in Australia. At first, it blocked news on its website in Australia but in the end, it came around and decide to share portions of its advertising revenue with the news organizations.
You forgot to write why they “agreed”. In Australia, the legislators passed amendments that obliged them to show such news. That is, first they were obliged to pay, and then they were obliged to show it. This nonsense can be told to fools, but the smart ones realize that it’s just a hidden tax. Australian lawmakers just didn’t have the balls to admit it openly.
>But it most countries did what these two countries did, Facebook would eventually have most of its news content simply disappear, It would only return if Facebook finally decided to share its revenue with the original content creators, the news organizations.
Or, will Facebook think of just opening its own news division, and it will be the only news resource shown on Facebook? And all the others will be left “overboard”?
That’s what the Russian and Chinese “googles” did. They’ve been doing it for a long time.
And the professionally unfit will invent another crutch law instead of solving the problem?
It’s funny that you’re saying the same thing as the lawmakers who passed this law, even though it’s written right in the news itself that small news resources have already started to feel the consequences in the form of _negative_ effects.
Although according to your logic, if Facebook is no longer syphoning news, then all Facebook users will run to watch news (and ad) on those small news resources. Or no, they won’t?
The problem is people. It needs a different kind of humanity to make it work the way you expect it to. Most people don’t go to a lot of small news sites and won’t even if Facebook doesn’t have the news at all.
I think the entire idea is to kill those outlets not “Government approved”; i.e. any and all of the independent small journalists that are providing alternatives to the CBC.