After the Canadian Parliament passed the proposed Online News Act, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, swiftly confirmed its intention to remove all news content from its platforms in Canada. Meta had previously warned of this consequence in a blog post earlier this month. Within hours of the bill’s passing, Meta officially announced that news availability would cease on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act (Bill C-18) taking effect.
In a statement, Meta stated, “We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada.”
The Online News Act aims to address the significant decline in advertising revenue experienced by Canadian news organizations over the past two decades. The legislation mandates that large tech companies such as Google and Meta negotiate reimbursement plans with these news outlets for featuring their stories on their respective platforms.
