Facebook shutters news rather than pay up under new Canadian law
Meta says it will cease providing news services on Facebook and Instagram before Canada's new law requiring it to pay news publishers comes into effect.
Canada's Online News Act (Bill C-18) has cleared its final Senate hearing and now needs only royal assent to become law. By the time it does, Meta will have shut down its news services for the country, so there.
Meta is effectively saying that it's their ball and they're taking it home. But of course it's not their ball, this is about Facebook and Instagram profiting from news publishers as it pays them nothing, and drives the industry out of business.
"Today, we are confirming that news availability will be ended on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act (Bill C-18) taking effect," said Meta in a blog post.
"We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, passed today in Parliament," it continues, "content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada."
That wording is disingenuous, to say the least. To actually comply with the new law, Facebook and Instagram would have to pay money.
According to BBC News, the law would have required Meta to pay around $250 million annually (CA$329 million).
Meta has reportedly described the bill as "fundamentally flawed legislation that ignores the realities of how our platforms work." It has also been "testing" the removal of news services for users in Canada, while the bill was being considered.
Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez previously described the tests being run by Meta -- and separately by Google -- as "unacceptable" and a "threat."
In a statement following Meta's announcement, Rodriguez said: "If the government can't stand up for Canadians against tech giants, who will?"
Facebook made a similar threat to remove news in Australia in 2021, but there it reversed the decision once the local government had given in to demands.
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Comments
Once again, non engineering types have absolutely no clue what it has taken to literally downsize a main frame of the 70s into a hand held device.
EU claims a free market. The customers should be able to choose from a range of options. The EU says you get to choose only the Edsel model since all phones will be the same but can get different colors....
He struggled to believe that a major event like that would happen and he wouldn’t see it on Facebook.
Unfortunately most news sites could use a course in Jim Lehrer's rules of journalism. Nobody in his right mind is going to pay good money for opinion-presented-as-fact such as "this is about Facebook and Instagram profiting from news publishers as it pays them nothing and drives the industry out of business".
With that context, it's obvious that this is a play from publishers to get additional revenue from a company that has deep pockets. Nothing wrong with that, its free enterprise, but in this kind of power play you better make sure that the company that you are trying to put the squeeze on needs you more than you need them.
Anything published is considered to be publicly consumable and subject to the "fair use" provisions in copyright law. Yes, you created it. Yes, you pay the cost of publishing (whether hosting digitally or printing physically). Yes, you are entitled to demand payment for access to the material you created; charging advertisers (or any third party) for the ability to have their content included or associated with your publication is fine.
BUT.
The right to demand payment is not the same as the ability to extract payment. Enforcement requires control, and there are diminishing returns when trying to control everything. We've already seen that even with the resources of a globe-spanning mega-corporation like facebook, moderation is (in practical terms) unworkable. The news publishers need to understand that they've ceded control of people's attention to the "social" media companies, and the solution is to win that attention back (however difficult that process may be). They also need to win back the attention of advertisers, if they choose an advertising-supported business model - what are advertisers looking for, and how can you as a news publisher provide that better than facebook does?
Frankly, I think news publications should move away from advertising: a reader wanting fact-based information is, uh, unlikely to find their desires fulfilled by advertisements. But it's difficult to identify a working business model for the existing publishers - perhaps they should voluntarily dissolve and see what can be formed from the ashes.
Profitless like the end user in most class action suits, a individual person or a publishing/news company that happens to upload a picture or a story that gets wired up channel, and then gets sucked up to the Meta or Google AI, there is no big pot of gold for that story, old media, newspapers, magazines, national TV, cable channels, and public television, have had 30 years to adapt to the World Wide Web, there is no reason for them not to have their own servers, their own tech infrastructure to serve information or news to the public, third-party outfits like Google or Meta are a poor substitutes, but most old line media fainted in the early years of the World Wide Web and have never really recovered from it. The tech giants won’t be able to dig them out of their troubles, not even with government interference on their behalf.
Also, the notion that “people these days” are lazy, or don’t want to work, or pay for things, is a very old trope going back decades and decades.
Well stated your position.
Did you not hear me in your imaginary head argument?
Yeah, it's a good idea. Who are you talking to?
I do, glad you do too!
No? Are you someone who is listening?