Meta Platforms has announced the commencement of the process to discontinue news access on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada.
The decision is a response to legislation that mandates internet giants, including Meta and Google, to compensate news publishers.
Rachel Curran, Meta’s head of public policy in Canada, stated that news outlets willingly share their content on Facebook and Instagram to reach a wider audience and improve their financial performance. However, she noted that the users of these platforms primarily do not visit them for news purposes.
Canada passed The Online News Act, which requires platforms to engage in commercial negotiations with Canadian news publishers for the use of their content. Both Google and Meta (formerly Facebook) rejected the legislation and conducted limited-time tests to assess its implications.
Andy Stone, the communications director at Meta, expressed that the law is built on a fundamentally flawed premise. As a result, Meta can only comply reasonably by ending news accessibility in Canada. He further mentioned that the changes will be implemented gradually over the course of a few weeks.
Before Canada, Australia also passed a similar law in 2021, which led to Google and Facebook issuing warnings about potentially limiting their services. However, both companies eventually reached agreements with Australian media firms after amendments were made to the legislation.
In Canada’s case, Google argued that the legislation is more extensive than those in Australia and Europe, as it mandates payment for news story links displayed in search results and can apply to outlets that are not news producers.
Meta also contended that links to news articles constitute less than 3% of the content in its users’ feeds and asserted that news lacked significant economic value.
However, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau countered these arguments, stating that they were flawed and “dangerous to our democracy and economy.”
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