Description
Facebook's parent company, Meta Platforms Inc, said Saturday it would end the availability of news content to Canadians on its platforms if the country's Online News Act in its current form is passed. The 'Online News Act', or House of Commons Bill C-18, introduced in April last year, laid out rules to force platforms like Alphabet Inc.'s Meta and Google to negotiate commercial deals and pay news publishers for their content. "A legislative framework that forces us to pay for links or content that we do not publish, and that are not the reason why the vast majority of people use our platforms, is not sustainable or viable," a Meta spokesperson said as a reason. . to stop the news. access in the country.
Meta's decision comes after Google began testing limited news censorship as a possible response to the bill last month.
Canada's media industry has called on the government to further regulate tech companies to allow the industry to recoup financial losses it has suffered over the years as tech giants like Google and Meta are steadily gaining a larger share of the advertising market.
In a statement on Sunday, Canada's Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said it was disappointing to see Facebook resorting to threats instead of working in good faith with the Canadian government, and that Bill C-18 had nothing to do with the way Facebook makes news accessible to Canadians. . .
“All we ask of Facebook is to negotiate fair deals with the media when they benefit from their work,” Rodríguez said. "It's part of a disappointing trend this week that tech giants would rather break news than pay their fair share."
Last year, Facebook raised concerns about the legislation, warning that it could be forced to block information sharing on its platform.
