Meta is set to shut down news on Facebook and Instagram in Canada after the federal government passed the Online News Act, or Bill C-18, a law mandating that tech companies pay content fees to domestic media outlets.
That’s the big thing, Facebook and Instagram has grown among humans massively over the past few years and it became one of the most used social media platforms.
People started getting current affair news from social media as news outlets have started utilizing social media widely, but looks like in Canada users need to subscribe to their respective news outlets.
Soon the act or say the bill passed, and Meta immediately acted against it and decided to shut down the news category.
Meta Shuts Down News in Canada
Meta, Facebook’s parent company on Thursday released a statement, “We have repeatedly shared that to comply with Bill C-18, 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.”
The company further added that it is currently conducting several weeks of product tests to “end news availability in Canada” following Parliament’s decision.
It’s not the first time Meta shut down their news area from their social media platforms in a country. Australia witnessed before as Facebook unfriended Aussies. The same Bill passed and Facebook left. At that time, it wasn’t called Meta.
California Passed The Bill Last Month
The first state in the United States to examine such a plan, California lawmakers adopted a bipartisan bill earlier this month that would oblige digital platforms to compensate news organizations for the information they host.
If the proposal is approved by the state Senate and becomes law, online platforms with at least 50 million U.S. monthly active users, 1 billion active users globally, or net annual sales or market capitalization of over $550 billion in the United States would have to compensate eligible media outlets for hosting their content.
“While these product tests are temporary, we intend to end the availability of news content in Canada permanently following the passage of Bill C-18,” Meta wrote in the statement.
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