Move comes in response to Canadian legislation requiring internet giants to pay news publishers
Guardian staff and agencies Tue 1 Aug 2023 22.14 BST
Meta has begun the process to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada, the company said on Tuesday.
The move comes in response to legislation in the country requiring internet giants to pay news publishers.
The findings suggest that Facebook users seek out content that aligns with their views.
Meta’s communications director, Andy Stone, said the changes will roll out in the coming weeks.
Canada’s heritage minister, Pascale St-Onge, who is in charge of the government’s dealings with Meta, called the move irresponsible.
“[Meta] would rather block their users from accessing good quality and local news instead of paying their fair share to news organizations,” St-Onge said in a statement on Tuesday. “We’re going to keep standing our ground. After all, if the government can’t stand up for Canadians against tech giants, who will?”
Canada’s public broadcast CBC also called Meta’s move irresponsible and said that it was “an abuse of their market power”.
The Online News Act, passed by the Canadian parliament, would force platforms like Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and Meta to negotiate commercial deals with Canadian news publishers for their content.
The legislation is part of a broader global trend of governments trying to make tech firms pay for news. Canada’s legislation is similar to a ground-breaking law that Australia passed in 2021 and had triggered threats from Google and Facebook to curtail their services. Both the companies eventually struck deals with Australian media firms after amendments to the legislation were offered.
In the US, the state of California has also considered a similar law. In that case, too, Meta has threatened to withdraw services from the state if the legislation goes through.
On the Canadian law, Google has 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.
Meta had said links to news articles make up less than 3% of the content on its users’ feed and argued that news lacked economic value.
Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, had said in May that such an argument was flawed and “dangerous to our democracy, to our economy”.
I’m inclined to give the Canadian government the benefit of the doubt here. I don’t know enough about the legislation details to know about how “fair” the changes are, but it seems to be in the spirit of protecting quality Canadian journalism:
The federal government has said that since 2008, close to 500 media outlets in 335 communities across Canada have closed, with more than 20,000 journalists losing their jobs, while Google and Meta continue to bring in billions in advertising dollars.
“Google and Facebook earn 80 per cent of all digital advertising revenue in Canada. Meanwhile, hundreds of newsrooms have closed,” Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a statement.
“A free and independent press is fundamental to our democracy, and Canadians expect tech giants to follow the law in our country.”
I don’t blame them or anyone tbh, that law is stupid af
I really don’t understand it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an article content in Facebook, it’s usually just a link. And why would having a link to the actual website be something to pay for? Because people don’t read articles anymore and only the title? If so, that’s not Meta’s or Google’s fault…
Google absolutely uses article texts. If you search on Google, you’ll see the “People also ask” section which might paraphrase your question, and then use sections of direct text from articles to answer your question.
Facebook often has article summaries as well, but I’m unsure whether those are posted by the organization itself or by Facebook.
