Meta Platforms has announced that it has begun the process of ending news access on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada. The move comes in response to a legislation that requires internet giants like Meta and Google to pay news publishers.
“News outlets voluntarily share content on Facebook and Instagram to expand their audiences and help their bottom line. In contrast, we know the people using our platforms don’t come to us for news,” Rachel Curran, Meta’s head of public policy in Canada, said.
Canada passed The Online News Act that would force platforms to negotiate commercial deals with Canadian news publishers for their content. Both Google and Meta rejected it, and they both tested it for a limited period of time.
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“As we’ve always said, the law is based on a fundamentally flawed premise. And, regrettably, the only way we can reasonably comply is to end news availability in Canada,” said Andy Stone, communications director at Meta. He also said that changes will roll out over a few weeks.
Australia’s law
Before Canada, Australia also passed a similar law in 2021, triggering threats from Google and Facebook to curtail their services.
But both the companies eventually struck deals with Australian media firms after amendments to the legislation were offered.
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However, in Canada’s case Google argued that it is broader than those enacted in Australia and Europe as it puts a price on news story links displayed in search results and can apply to outlets that do not produce news.
Meanwhile Meta also claimed that links to news articles make up less than 3% of the content on its users’ feed and argued that news lacked economic value.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had previously said that such an argument was flawed and “dangerous to our democracy, to our economy.”
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