Canadian government pulls advertising from Facebook, Instagram
The Canadian government says that it will stop advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez announced the decision in a tweet on Wednesday.
“We have decided to take the necessary step of suspending all Government of Canada advertising to Facebook,” he said. “We cannot continue paying advertising dollars to Meta while they refuse to pay their fair share to Canadian news organizations.”
We have decided to take the necessary step of suspending all Government of Canada advertising to Facebook.
We cannot continue paying advertising dollars to Meta while they refuse to pay their fair share to Canadian news organizations.
— Pablo Rodriguez (@pablorodriguez) July 5, 2023
The move is in response to Meta confirming that it will end access to news content on Facebook and Instagram for all Canadian users after the government passed Bill C-18, also known as the Online News Act.
“As we have repeatedly shared, the Online News Act is flawed legislation that ignores the realities of how our platforms work, the preferences of the people who use them and the value we provide news publishers,” said a Meta spokesperson in an email to statement to Daily Hive on Wednesday.
The company reiterated how it doesn’t proactively collect links to news content to display on its platforms. It says publishers choose to post on Facebook and Instagram because “it benefits them to do so.”
“Unfortunately, the regulatory process is not equipped to make changes to the fundamental features of the legislation that have always been problematic, and so we plan to comply by ending news availability in Canada in the coming weeks,” the spokesperson added.
This back-and-forth between the Canadian government and the tech giant has been happening since the controversial bill was proposed.
The law, which will come into force in about six months, requires tech giants like Meta and Google to pay news organizations for linking to or repurposing their content online.
Google has also confirmed that it will be blocking local news in Canada due to the divisive law.
Experts in the news industry have been sounding the alarm on the repercussions of this bill.
Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, says that Facebook blocking news content will “disproportionately hurt smaller and independent media outlets and leave the field to poorer quality sources.”
Even though the bill has become law, it won’t take effect for a few months.
The Department of Canadian Heritage will now draft specific regulations and provide guidance on implementing it.
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