Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta will remove news from Facebook and Instagram in Canada after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau passed a law forcing tech giants to pay media outlets for content.
Meta on Thursday confirmed its intention to comply with the Online Information Act by ending the availability of Facebook and Instagram information to its Canadian users, as it had previously suggested.
Meta did not provide details on the timing of the move, but said it would remove local news from its site before the Online News Act takes effect. The bill will come into force six months after receiving Royal Assent.
“We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, which passed Parliament today, content from news outlets, including news editors and broadcasters, will only be no longer available to people accessing our platforms in Canada,” Lisa said. Laventure, communications manager for Meta in Canada.
The Canadian Senate on Thursday passed a bill that will force Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content they share or otherwise reuse on their platforms.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta will remove news from Facebook and Instagram in Canada after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau passes a law forcing tech giants to pay media outlets for content
Meta on Thursday confirmed its intention to comply with the Online Information Act by ending the availability of Facebook and Instagram information to its Canadian users, as it had previously suggested. Meta did not provide details on the timing of the move, but said it would remove local news from its site before the Online News Act takes effect.
The bill, which is expected to become law, was passed amid a standoff between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government and Silicon Valley tech giants.
Ottawa said the law creates a level playing field between online advertising giants and the declining news industry. Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has promised to fend off what he describes as “threats” from Facebook and Google to remove journalism from their platforms.
Traditional media and broadcasters have hailed the bill, which promises to “bolster fairness” in the digital news market and help bring in more money for shrinking newsrooms. Tech giants, including Meta and Google, have in the past been accused of disrupting and dominating the advertising industry, eclipsing smaller traditional players.
Laura Scaffidi, the minister’s spokeswoman, said Rodriguez was due to have a meeting Thursday afternoon with Google, which hinted that removing news links from its popular search engine was a possibility. The company has not commented on this.
Meta is already undergoing a test that blocks news for up to 5% of its Canadian users, and Google conducted a similar test earlier this year.
The Online News Act requires the two companies to enter into agreements with news publishers to pay them for news content that appears on their sites if it helps the tech giants generate money.
“The tech giants have no obligations under the law immediately after the passage of Bill C-18. As part of this process, full details will be made public before a tech giant is named under the law,” Scaffidi said.
The Canadian Senate on Thursday passed a bill that will force Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content they share or otherwise reuse on their platforms.
Canada isn’t alone in considering laws that could force big tech to pay for information operations.
Australia passed a world-first law in 2021 that required big tech companies to enter into deals with media outlets to pay them for content.
Facebook initially blocked all news on its platform in the country while the legislation was debated in the Senate.
The landmark decision also inadvertently blocked non-media pages, including some run by government and emergency services.
Facebook reinstated the feed information after the government agreed not to apply the code to the company and others like Google if they entered into licensing agreements with media publishers.
Lawmakers said in December that the bill — which has led to more than 30 deals between tech companies and media outlets — had largely been a success.
Additionally, Meta has threatened to pull news content from its platforms in California if the state passes a bill requiring big tech companies to pay publishers a “journalism user fee.”
California’s Journalism Preservation Bill would require corporations and social media companies, including Google, to pay reduced advertising revenue to news publishers whose work appears on their websites.
The bill is designed to reverse the decline of the local news industry, with publishers who receive payments being forced to invest 70% of the money in ‘news reporters and support staff’ .
Meta said Wednesday the law would create a “slush fund” that benefits big media companies and threatened to pull information from Facebook and Instagram accounts accessible in California, where it is headquartered.
