Meta has announced ending news sharing on its social media platforms in Canada after the country’s parliament approved the Online News Act on Thursday. The legislation, which remained the focus of contention between publishers and Big Tech platforms for the past four months, will oblige tech companies to pay news outlets for featuring their content on online platforms.
The Online News Act, or Bill C-18, will require digital firms to compensate local news outlets for linking to their news articles on social media platforms. In this way, publishers will be able to bargain for a greater share of revenue for their content that is used by tech companies.
The legislation primarily targets corporations such as Meta and Google, which are repeatedly questioned about their influence over the digital advertising industry. The law has already prompted a strong reaction from Meta, which, on several occasions, has threatened to pull news content from Facebook and Instagram altogether for Canadian users.
After the legislation was passed on Thursday, Meta stated the company would follow through with its plans to cut off news entirely on its online platforms once the law comes into effect.
“Today, we are confirming that news availability will be ended on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act taking effect,” Meta said in a statement.
Meta’s prior statements in response to the law suggest news holds no economic value to the company, and that users do not use its popular platforms to consume news content. Meta has also denied reports and publishers’ claims that it profits heavily from news, saying exposure to news content through Facebook and Instagram helps news outlets with visibility and reach instead.
The development arrives as pressure mounted on the Canadian government from publishers to increase regulation of tech corporations. According to publishers, such legislative frameworks would enable media houses to recover financial losses incurred as a result of Big Tech’s dominance over the digital advertising space.
“All we’re asking Facebook to do is negotiate fair deals with news outlets when they profit from their work,” Canada’s Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez had said in March. “This is part of a disappointing trend this week that tech giants would rather pull news than pay their fair share.”
Google, on the other hand, said the legislation remains “unworkable”.
“We are continuing to urgently seek to work with the government on a path forward,” a Google spokesperson remarked.
The search engine giant had already started testing limited news censorship for the Canadian market around the time the Online News Act was being proposed. Shortly after, Google found itself in the Canadian parliament, where the corporation was grilled for blocking news content in the country for a specific set of users.
Google, however, claimed the test was like any other regular product-related assessment and that no decision had been made regarding any permanent product changes in the Canadian market.
Meta first officially objected to the Online News Act in October last year, challenging claims from publishers that the company scraped links to their news stories. In response, Meta claimed news was not a significant source of revenue for the company; posts with links to news articles made up only three per cent of what Canadian consumers saw on their Facebook Feed. Moreover, Meta claimed users wanted to see less news and political content on its platforms.
In December 2022, Meta similarly threatened to remove news content from Facebook and Instagram over the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) in the US. The legislation would allow media companies greater control over the revenue generated through their original content used by leading social media giants.
In 2021, Meta briefly suspended news content from its platforms in Australia after a similar legislation was implemented. The content was restored, however, following successful talks between Meta and Australian media companies, which resulted in several amendments to the legislation.
