As a response to the Online News Act passed by Canadian legislators, Meta has started blocking news content on Facebook and Instagram in Canada. This means that users in the country will no longer be able to view or share news links, videos, or photos posted by publishers and broadcasters. The change will take a few weeks to be fully implemented for all users in Canada.
The Online News Act requires certain platforms to negotiate revenue-sharing agreements with news organizations to address the decline in advertising revenue that traditional news outlets have experienced due to the rise of online services. Facebook and Google currently dominate the digital advertising revenue, with the two companies accounting for about 80 percent of it combined.
In response to the legislation, Google has also announced its plan to stop users in Canada from accessing links to news stories across several of its products.
This move by Meta is reminiscent of a similar situation in Australia in early 2021, where Facebook initially stopped users from sharing news links on its platform. Eventually, Meta, Google, and other platform holders reached an agreement to pay publishers for posting news links and snippets in Australia. It remains to be seen how the situation will unfold in Canada and whether a resolution can be reached between the platforms and news organizations.
