Meta to start blocking news content for up to 5% of Canadian Facebook, Instagram users
Meta will soon block some Canadian users of Face‐ book and Instagram from accessing or posting news content on either plat‐ form.
The move, which the social media giant announced in a blog post on Thursday, comes in reaction to the looming passage into law of Bill C-18, the Online News Act.
Facebook has said it will be forced to block news content from its platforms in Canada if the bill becomes law, some‐ thing that could happen as soon as this month as the bill is currently being considered in the Senate.
Among other stipulations, the bill would require tech gi‐ ants to pay Canadian media companies for linking to or otherwise repurposing their content online.
"As we prepare to comply with the legislation, we are an‐ nouncing today that we will begin tests on both platforms that will limit some users and publishers from viewing or sharing some news content in Canada," Meta said.
Between one and five per cent of the 24 million Canadi‐ ans who use Facebook or In‐ stagram will be included in the test, which is set to start soon.
Different content may be blocked for different users on different platforms, said Rachel Curran, the head of public policy for Meta Canada.
"It won't be a uniform ex‐ perience, necessarily," she said. "Some news links won't be shareable on Facebook, but it might not be that expe‐ rience on Instagram. It will be a different experience on dif‐ ferent surfaces."
"Throughout the testing period, which will run for sev‐ eral weeks, a small percentage of people in Canada who are enrolled in testing will be noti‐ fied if they attempt to share news content."
The test means that a user would not see links to articles or videos from news publish‐ ers anywhere in their feed. A user would also be blocked from sharing such content to other people.
News publishers will be able to post news links and content, but some of it will not be viewable in Canada.
WATCH | Why Facebook is threatening to block news in Canada:
Users who will be included in the test will be selected ran‐ domly, and will only be made aware that they're included if they attempt to share news, at which point they will see a notification that they are un‐ able to.
The number of news pub‐ lishers who will have their content included in the test will not be public and is also randomized, but could in‐ clude international publishers that operate in Canada. The publishers will be notified if they have been included in the test, Meta says.
News industry decries move
Paul Deegan, the head of News Media Canada, called
Meta's move a "kick in the shins" to Canadians at a time when the value and need for credible information has nev‐ er been greater.
"Meta's decision to 'un‐ friend' Canada by denying ac‐ cess to trusted sources of news for some of their users, as wildfires burn and when public safety is at stake is irre‐ sponsible and tone deaf," Deegan told CBC News in an email.
"This hard-nose lobbying tactic is more evidence of the power imbalance that exists between dominant platforms and publishers, which is why parliamentarians need to pass the Online News Act be‐ fore their summer recess."
Meta's move comes on the heels of a similar move by Google earlier this year, when it blocked news results for more than a million Canadi‐ ans, also in opposition to the bill.
Meta says Bill C-18 is "fun‐ damentally flawed legislation that ignores the realities of how our platforms work, the preferences of the people who use them, and the value we provide news publishers."
Curran told senators pon‐ dering the bill in a committee last month that the company objects to being asked to compensate news publishers for their content, when by their calculation they have given news publishers more than 1.9 million clicks in Cana‐ da in the past year, "and free marketing worth more than $230 million in estimated val‐ ue."
"We will be forced to com‐ pensate news publishers for material that they post to dri‐ ve traffic and drive clicks back to their page and websites where they can then mone‐ tize those views and eyeballs either through a paywall or they can place ads against the views that show up on their web page," she said. "We are being asked to compensate them for an activity that actu‐ ally benefits them from a monetary perspective."
Government calls move 'disappointing'
Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez called Meta's move "disappointing" and said Canadians will not be intimi‐ dated by these tactics.
Legacy media and broad‐ casters have praised the bill, which promises to "enhance fairness" in the digital news marketplace and help bring in more money for shrinking newsrooms. Tech giants in‐ cluding Meta and Google have been blamed in the past for disrupting and dominating the advertising industry, eclipsing smaller, traditional players.
Meta, which is based in Menlo Park, Calif., has taken similar steps in the past. In 2021, it briefly blocked news from its platform in Australia after the country passed legis‐ lation that would compel tech companies to pay publishers for using their news stories. It later struck deals with Aus‐ tralian publishers.
Meta also reached a deal with U.K. publishers that year, after similar discussions.
Accountable Tech, a U.S.based advocacy group push‐ ing for more regulation of technology companies in that country, says the news black‐ outs in various countries show the lengths that big tech companies will go to in order to sway governments and maintain their profits.
"What we witnessed un‐ fold in Australia, and now in Canada, is Big Tech's willing‐ ness to cripple democracy by withholding news content to a population — chosen at random — as a bargaining chip to stop legislation," the group's executive director Nicole Gill said.
"It's clear that Meta has no interest in acting in good faith or improving the lives of its users and the communities they operate in. There is sim‐ ply no reason for the U.S. to delay any action on reining them in."