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It is an open battle in Canada between Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, and the government on the issue of publishing news from journalistic sources. Here are the facts: the Canadian Senate has approved the Online News Act, a bill that will require Google and Meta to pay the media for news shared or reused on their platforms. The provision will come into force only in six months, but the response was immediate: Meta confirmed that she intends to fulfill the obligations of the bill by interrupting the publication of news on social media Facebook and Instagram for Canadian users.
No details were provided on the timing of that move, but the company said it will remove Canadian news sources from its sites before the Online News Act takes effect.
Meta’s answer
“We have repeatedly shared that, in order to comply with the bill passed in Parliament, the contents of news organizations, including those from both written sources and audio/video broadcasts, will no longer be available to people who access our platforms in Canada,” said Lisa Laventure, communications manager for Meta in the country.
The bill approved by the Senate has been welcomed by news publishers, as it promises to improve equity in the digital news market and help increase revenues for news organizations. Tech giants, including Meta and Google, have previously been accused of dominating the advertising industry to which news publishers owe a large portion of their revenues, eclipsing smaller, more traditional players.
The measure
The Ottawa government has said the Online News Act will create a level playing field between online advertising giants and the news industry. And Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has vowed to roll back what he describes as “threats” from Facebook and Google to remove journalistic content from their platforms. Laura Scaffidi, a spokeswoman for the minister, said Rodriguez had a meeting Thursday afternoon with Google’s management, who hinted that removing news links from the popular search engine was a possibility.