Meta to REMOVE news from Facebook and Instagram in Canada after Trudeau passes law

Mark Zuckerberg‘s Meta will remove news from Facebook and Instagram in Canada after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau passed a law that forces tech giants to pay media outlets for content. 

Meta confirmed Thursday it plans to comply with the Online News Act by ending news availability on Facebook and Instagram for its Canadian users, as it had previously suggested. 

Meta would not offer details about the timeline for that move, but said it will pull local news from its site before the Online News Act takes effect. The bill will come into force six months after it receives royal assent.

‘We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, which was passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada,’ said Lisa Laventure, head of communications for Meta in Canada.

Canada’s Senate passed a bill Thursday that will require Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content that they share or otherwise repurpose on their platforms.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta will remove news from Facebook and Instagram in Canada after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau passed a law that forces tech giants to pay media outlets for content

Meta confirmed Thursday it plans to comply with the Online News Act by ending news availability on Facebook and Instagram for its Canadian users, as it had previously suggested. Meta would not offer details about the timeline for that move, but said it will pull local news from its site before the Online News Act takes effect

The bill, which is set to become law, was passed amid a standoff between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government and Silicon Valley tech giants.

Ottawa has said the law creates a level playing field between online advertising giants and the shrinking news industry. Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has promised to push back on what he describes as ‘threats’ from Facebook and Google to remove journalism from their platforms.

Legacy media and broadcasters have praised the bill, which promises to ‘enhance fairness’ in the digital news marketplace and help bring in more money for shrinking newsrooms. Tech giants, including Meta and Google, have been blamed in the past for disrupting and dominating the advertising industry, eclipsing smaller, traditional players.

Laura Scaffidi, a spokesperson for the minister, said Rodriguez was set to have a meeting Thursday afternoon with Google, which has hinted that removing news links from its popular search engine is a possibility. The company didn´t provide comment on the matter.

Meta is already undergoing a test that blocks news for up to 5 percent of its Canadian users, and Google ran a similar test earlier this year.

The Online News Act requires both 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 do not have obligations under the act immediately after Bill C-18 passes. As part of this process, all details will be made public before any tech giant is designated under the act,’ said Scaffidi.

Canada’s Senate passed a bill Thursday that will require Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content that they share or otherwise repurpose on their platforms. 

Canada isn’t the only country that is looking at laws that could force Big Tech to pay news operations.  

Australia passed a world-first law in 2021 that compelled big tech companies to strike deals with media outlets to compensate them for content.

Facebook initially blocked all news on its platform in the country while the legislation was being debated in the Senate. 

The historic move also inadvertently blocked non-media pages including some run by the government and emergency services.

Facebook restored news to feeds after the government agreed not to apply the code to the company and others such as 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 firms and media outlets – had largely been a success.

In addition, Meta has threatening to pull news content from its platforms in California if the state passes a bill forcing big tech companies to pay publishers a ‘journalism usage fee.’

The proposed California Journalism Preservation Act would oblige social media companies and firms, including Google, to pay a cut of advertising revenue to news publishers whose work appears on their websites.

The bill is designed to reverse a decline in the local news industry, with publishers who receive payments forced to invest 70 percent of the money into ‘news journalists and support staff.’

Meta said Wednesday the act would create a ‘slush fund’ that benefits large media companies and threatened to pull news from Facebook and Instagram accounts accessed in California, where it is headquartered