Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, took to Twitter today to slam Meta for following the law, specifically the Online News Act.
“Meta’s reckless choice to block news before the Act is in force is hurting access to vital information on Facebook and Instagram,” said St-Onge. “We are calling on them to reinstate news sharing today for the safety of Canadians facing this emergency. We need more news right now, not less.”
The post on X was ironically linking to a media story on the wildfires in the Northwest Territories. X is not in the government’s sight for paying media publishers, yet.
Meta’s reckless choice to block news before the Act is in force is hurting access to vital information on Facebook and Instagram.
We are calling on them to reinstate news sharing today for the safety of Canadians facing this emergency. We need more news right now, not less. https://t.co/4X3xe61DCG
— Pascale St-Onge (@PascaleStOnge_) August 18, 2023
The Online News Act was created to have big tech companies, specifically Meta and Google, pay media outlets every time someone shared a link to news on Facebook or Instagram, for example. Instead, both Meta and Google did not reach an agreement on what this amount would be and have exercised their right to block news, following the law created by the federal government.
University of Ottawa law professor, Michael Geist, replied to St-Onge’s allegations. “Bill C-18 is law. Government repeatedly cut off debate to give it royal assent before the summer. The potential harm to media and Canadians from blocked news links were dismissed and described by the Minister as a “business choice”. Who was being reckless?”, said Geist.
Bill C-18 is law. Government repeatedly cut off debate to give it royal assent before the summer. The potential harm to media and Canadians from blocked news links were dismissed and described by the Minister as a “business choice”. Who was being reckless?https://t.co/gNfhDJdWuE
— Michael Geist (@mgeist) August 18, 2023
As of writing, news outlets that normally would get traffic from social networks such as Facebook and Instagram are losing out. But despite Bill C-18 being law, Canadians are sharing news anyways on Facebook.
How? They’re just posting screenshots or pasting text copied from news stories. These actions do not benefit these news outlets and they are actually getting screwed by the Online News Act, losing out on revenue. Maybe it’s time to limit copy and pasting within these apps…
Here’s an example of a Facebook user just pasting in text copied from a Global News story, that’s not available on Facebook:
In a statement to the National Post, Meta referred to Facebook’s “safety check” feature, which was activated in Yellowknife yesterday. The feature allows people to check-in on the social network as “safe”.
“People in Canada can continue to use our technologies to connect with their communities and access reputable information, including content from official government agencies, emergency services and non-governmental organizations,” said the Meta spokesperson.
Are Canadians smart enough to visit a news website directly if news is not available conveniently on Facebook or Instagram? We would think so.
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Is this government competent at anything?
If you pass a law requiring someone to pay for the privilege of providing a free service, then you are hardly in a position to complain if they choose not to provide that service. Outside of Marxist utopias, where else would one possibly think forcing someone to pay for providing a service would work out well?
The news services are not blocked in Canada. Meta is simply not spending their resources amplifying them by allowing their users to share them. The fact that the media companies and gov are now suddenly freaking out shows that Meta was actually providing a valuable service to the media companies.
“Justin Trudeau. He’s just not ready.”
Even more true now than before he was elected.
What did you expect…It’s a bunch of lying incompetent clowns, struggling now to pull the wool over the uninformed eyes…and there are MANY.
How many Canadians know what the Bill c-18 actually says?
There was a quick cartoon on YouTube comparing this shakedown with forcing the newspaper boy to pay the newspaper for every house passed and delivered. Hope that is simple enough for folks to get the point.
More concerned about C-11. The media is quick to put c-18 in the news because it affects their revenue. But C-11 is dystopian in how much authority it gives Trudeau to dictate content.
Objectively, one of the most dangerously authoritarian laws in place in a western democracy and our media won’t cover it at all. And their slowwitted groupies will support it.
Don’t get me started…the one that REALLY scares the bejeezus out of me is C-36. Only a project now, but it puts North Korea to shame when it comes to policing speech and more shockingly, thoughts.
You could be charged because I FEAR you MIGHT say something that would hurt my feelings. Orwell didn’t see this one coming.
Yup.
And the Trudeau groupies would respond with “yeah, but whatabout North Korea or Russia or China”. Anything to try to defect from this clown.
But those socks! – Jacobim Mugatu
Ministerette of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge is a more apt description. Barely been in office for a cup of coffee, but passed all of Trudy’s lefty checkmarks for advancement.
What are you implying? That being in a I3sbian rock band is not enough to qualify her for the job? Man oh man, you sure are demanding 🤣
Reminds me of Ciocciolina being elected in the Italian parliament.
Just read Apple News. Problem solved! Apple at least pays its news organizations 👌
If you cannot understand the difference between what Apple New does and what linking to the news on Meta is, then you deserve a job in Government.
I can’t understand why people use Meta! 🙄🙄🙄
Meta get most of his usage because of news on the platform, now that the news are blocked they are getting alot less active users.
These “twits’ in office are so ignorant they cannot understand they are hurting the very entities they are trying help.
What do you expect coming from the same government that wants to bring half a million immigrants a year when we don’t have the housing for the ones we already have…and they wonder why rent is so astronomically high these days.
Can a federal election come soon enough?
The news sites are still available from what I can see. It was irresponsible to put in a law forcing these companies to pay for the links, what other option were they left with really? Should they pay for links their end users put up? I think not. The government needs to rethink their strategy and stop assuming they can control others.
That minister should be slamming the Trudeau government, not Meta.
and why is that? Meta is the on being greedy, while profiting of users using facebook solely for news.
How is allowing CTV, CBC, and Global to create free Facebook pages greedy? The thousands of extra views and attention these organizations got from Facebook alone is massive. Not anymore though.
The thousands of extra users and attention Facebook gets from Medias alone is massive. Not anymore though.