Meta To Silence All News Outlets on Canadian Facebook, Instagram

Facebook parent company Meta announced that it has begun blocking the news content of Facebook and Instagram in Canada due to a law passed last year that would require the social media platform to pay the media outlets for all content shared on them.

According to The Washington Times, the passage of the Online News Act in Ottowa last year led to Meta warning that it would block news content across its platforms in response. Tuesday, it demonstrated that this wasn't a bluff.

“In order to comply with the Online News Act, we have begun the process of ending news availability in Canada,” Meta said in a published blog post.

“These changes start today, and will be implemented for all people accessing Facebook and Instagram in Canada over the course of the next few weeks.”

The restrictions impacting Canadian users of Facebook and Instagram will be extreme while the impacts on international news outlets with audiences in Canada will be extensive. But the impact on Canadian news outlets will likely be devastating.

• "News links and content posted by news publishers and broadcasters in Canada will no longer be viewable by people in Canada."
• "News publishers and broadcasters outside of Canada will continue to be able to post news links and content, however, that content will not be viewable by people in Canada."
• "People in Canada will no longer be able to view or share news content on Facebook and Instagram, including news articles and audio-visual content posted by news outlets. "

Meta claimed in its statement that the Online News Act is, "based on the incorrect premise that Meta benefits unfairly from news content shared on our platforms, when the reverse is true," adding that "In the future,” the controversial platforms “hope the Canadian government will recognize the value we already provide the news industry and consider a policy response that upholds the principles of a free and open internet, champions diversity and innovation, and reflects the interests of the entire Canadian media landscape.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said that he regrets Meta's decision but entirely blamed liberal Prime Minster Justin Trudeau for the debacle, according to Rebel News.

“It's like 1984,” he said. “You have a prime minister passing a law to make news articles disappear from the internet. Who would've ever imagined that in Canada, the federal government would pass laws banning people from effectively seeing the news? Who would've thought that we'd have a government that would pass a law to manipulate the algorithms of the internet?”