Canada: Meta To End News Access in Wake of New Media Law

Facts

• On Thursday, Facebook and Instagram owner Meta announced that it would end access to news for Canadian users in light of the passage of Bill C-18, the Online News Act.¹
• Bill C-18 requires social media sites to negotiate payment deals with news publishers for the content posted on their sites. While the government argues the law protects Canadian media, tech companies have called it unsustainable for their business model.²
• The legislation, which passed the Senate on Thursday and will come into effect in six months, has spurred Meta to block news links for up to 5% of its 24M Canadian users as part of a test.¹
• As the company tested news blocking earlier this year, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Google executives aimed to avert further disruption. Google called Bill C-18 "unworkable," but the government rejected their call to remove the payment provision and consider the value news outlets gain from social media sites.³
• PM Justin Trudeau has accused the tech platforms of "bullying tactics" in their effort against the bill, as 470 media outlets in Canada have closed since 2008. Part of the money generated by Bill C-18 will go towards supporting Canadian media.¹
• The media funding regime is based on similar legislation in Australia, the first country to have tech companies compensate news publishers. Meta temporarily blocked the sharing of news articles for Australian users, and Google threatened to block the use of their search engine before relenting and striking deals with publishers.¹

Sources: ¹CBC, ²Reuters, and ³The Globe and Mail.

Narratives

• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Toronto Sun. Big tech has siphoned off the lion's share of the revenue from news media that desperately need financial security. You cannot have a functioning democracy without an informed population, and a dearth of quality news from trusted sources will ensure that. Social media cannot be complicit in this decline, and instead of paying journalists what they are owed, they are taking punitive measures in an arrogant display. Big tech has gotten a free ride for too long, and it's time for them to pay up.
• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by The Hub. Bill C-18 is an ill-advised piece of protectionism that will only serve to harm Canadians to keep moribund legacy media outlets afloat. The government is imposing a regime of almost unlimited financial liability on social media companies, and it just makes economic sense for them to get out entirely instead of dealing with the unpredictability. Innovators in the media and tech sphere will suffer to keep failing newspapers afloat.