The social media giant Meta, which is behind Facebook and Instagram, has boldly started the process of removing news from its platforms across Canada. The choice was made in reaction to Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which was passed by the Canadian government in June and requires digital behemoths like Google and Meta to compensate media organisations for the use of their news coverage on social networking platforms.
“We are announcing today that we have begun the process of ending news availability permanently in Canada,” Rachel Curran, Meta’s head of public policy in Canada, stated emphatically. The company had already been experimenting with blocking news content for some Canadians in anticipation of C-18 becoming law, but now the measure will be extended nationwide, as per a report from CBC.
This new regulation will prevent Canadians from accessing or posting news items on Facebook and Instagram, and even foreign news organisations will experience content banning on these sites.
The Canadian government claims that a sizeable chunk of the advertising money that conventional news outlets mainly rely on has been swallowed up by tech firms. Therefore, Bill C-18 was presented as a way to address this disparity and guarantee just compensation for news producers.
The regulation, which was based on a comparable Australian statute, required internet businesses to pay for the use of news content, which caused Facebook to briefly stop allowing Australians to share news stories on its site.
In response to Meta’s decision to permanently restrict news availability, the Canadian government has temporarily discontinued its advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Despite the fact that C-18 was given royal assent in June, it has not yet gone into effect since the Department of Canadian Heritage is still preparing the regulations needed to put it into effect.
