Into the ether. Vapourware.That’s the fate of a third of Canadian online news content, as per an independent report into the impact of Facebook parent company Meta’s decision to block Canadian news content last summer.According to the Media Ecosytem Observatory, a data-driven examination of the ban’s impact on Canadians and Canadian news media Canadian news outlets have lost 85% of their engagement on Facebook and Instagram..The report estimates that news outlets have lost a combined 11 million page views per day.That loss hasn’t been made up on other social media platforms, like Twitter (“X”), resulting in a net 43% overall decrease in engagement.Hardest hit have been local news outlets. the study found that a third of local news outlets that were previously active on social media are now inactive.Worse, three quarters of Canadians are unaware of the change. Barely 22% of people even know news is banned, even among those who say they rely on Meta platforms to get their news.The net result is exactly what the federal government was hoping to avoid with the Online News Act: a concentration of news sources and an increase in what it calls ‘disinformation’..“Canadians continue to learn about politics and current events through Facebook and Instagram, but through a more biased and less factual lens than before and many Canadians do not even realize the shift has occurred,” it said. “They do not appear to be seeking news elsewhere.”The results show that in practice, the Online News Act has made the Canadian news media landscape less competitive and less available to Canadians..“A healthy news industry is a critical part of any democracy: people need access to accurate, diverse, trustworthy information that is presented without political bias. Due to the ban, the Canadian information ecosystem is less able to facilitate that access and many Canadians are simply unaware,” it said.“This inattentiveness and disinterest of Canadians and especially politicians is a disservice to Canadian democracy. We simply cannot rely on entities like Meta to act in the best interests of Canadians and help support an informed and engaged democracy.”
