Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, formally began the process of 'permanently' ending access to Canadian news on their respective platforms on Tuesday, in response to C-18, the Liberal government’s Online News Act..In a statement — ironically released on Twitter — the Silicon Valley tech giant said it hopes the Canadian government will reconsider what it described as discriminatory policies with changes that "uphold the principles of a free and open internet and reflects the interests of the entire Canadian media landscape.”.Meta, which was previously running a test phase that limited content for up to 5% of its users said it would now be removing news content for all its Canadian users over the course of the next several weeks..That means links to news articles posted by publishers — including The Western Standard — will no longer be available to Canadians accessing its platforms. It will not affect users in other countries such as the US or the EU..It said the move is in response to the new federal law that requires the tech giants to enter into agreements to compensate news outlets for reposting their content. .In fact, Meta said the reverse is true; that news outlets “voluntarily share content on Facebook and Instagram to expand their audiences and help their bottom line.”.“It is based on the incorrect premise that Meta benefits unfairly from news content shared on our platforms, when the reverse is true. In contrast we know the people using our platforms don’t come to us for news.”.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in May such an argument was flawed and "dangerous to our democracy, to our economy.".Incoming Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge has made no comment on the matter. .A similar law was proposed in Australia in 2021 but the government there eventually relented with amendments that allowed media firms to strike deals with the social media companies. There’s no indication a similar compromise is in the works in Canada..Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is expected to follow suit in due course. Meta said news links make up less than 3% of traffic on its websites, but for content providers including The Western Standard up to half of all traffic comes from social media sites..In Senate hearings on C-18 earlier this spring, The Western Standard publisher Derek Fildebrandt had lobbied for an exemption..The Western Standard receives no funding, public or otherwise, from the federal government for publishing content.
