All news in Canada will be removed from Facebook, Instagram within weeks: Meta

There’s better articles out there about the issue. Here’s another article: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/technology/article-meta-begins-process-to-end-news-access-on-facebook-instagram-for-users/

The bulk of the issue seems to be:

The federal government has said that since 2008, close to 500 media outlets in 335 communities across Canada have closed, with more than 20,000 journalists losing their jobs, while Google and Meta continue to bring in billions in advertising dollars.

“Google and Facebook earn 80 per cent of all digital advertising revenue in Canada. Meanwhile, hundreds of newsrooms have closed,” Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a statement.

“A free and independent press is fundamental to our democracy, and Canadians expect tech giants to follow the law in our country.”

I think it’s great that Canada is trying to protect good journalism and find a way to adapt. I don’t know enough about the legislation specifics to know if it’s written in a way that’s fair and not prohibitive to Meta or Google.

I’m on the team that supports good Canadian journalism and I suspect that’s not the same side as Meta. My friend got a notification on his Facebook this week that had messaging around “unfortunately we won’t be showing the news and it’s Canada’s fault”. It was a pretty shitty way that they put it and it seems to have gone into a game of chicken at this point.