In response to legislation requiring internet giants to pay news publishers, Meta Platforms announced on Tuesday that it has started the process of removing access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada.
The Canadian Parliament’s Online News Act would compel companies like Google parent Alphabet and Meta to negotiate business agreements with Canadian news publishers for their content.
In order to increase their audiences and boost their revenue, news organisations voluntarily share content on Facebook and Instagram, according to Rachel Curran, Meta’s head of public policy in Canada. On the other hand, we are aware that users of our platforms do not rely on us for news.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge’s office, which is in charge of the government’s interactions with Meta.
Both Meta and Google announced in June that they would restrict access to news on their platforms in the nation as part of a campaign against the law, which is a component of a larger global trend to make tech companies pay for news.
The groundbreaking law Australia passed in 2021 that prompted threats from Google and Facebook to limit their services is similar to the legislation Canada has enacted.
After proposed changes to the law, both companies ultimately reached agreements with Australian media companies.
However, Google has argued that Canadian law is more expansive than those adopted in Australia and Europe because it charges for links to news stories that appear in search results and can be applied to sources that do not produce news.
Meta had argued that news lacked economic value because links to news articles made up less than 3% of the content in its users’ feeds.
Such an argument is fallacious and “dangerous to our democracy, to our economy,” according to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who made this statement in May.