Facebook, Instagram to Block News in Canada After Content Fee Adopted

The Facebook app is shown on a smartphone in Surfside, Fla., on April 23, 2021. Wilfredo Lee, File/AP Photo

Meta has announced that it will block access to news on Facebook and Instagram in Canada after the country passed a new law forcing digital platforms to pay content fees to domestic media.

The announcement followed the Canadian Senate’s approval of the “Online News Act,” which forces companies such as Facebook and Google to pay fees to media outlets when their content is posted, linked to, or otherwise repurposed on the platforms.

Meta stated that it would end the availability of news on its platforms even before the measure becomes law in about six months.

“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,” the company said in a statement.

The company previously warned that it would block news on its platforms if the law passed without the major changes that it had for months been demanding.

“Earlier this month, we announced that we were conducting product tests to help us build an effective product solution to end news availability as a result of C-18,” Meta said in a statement.

A security guard stands near the Meta logo outside the headquarters of Facebook's parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., in Mountain View, Calif., on Nov. 9, 2022. Peter DaSilva/Reuters

Meta stated that these tests are continuing and are already affecting a small percentage of Canadian users.

The Online News Act was conceived as a way to bolster the Canadian news industry, which has seen its revenue dwindle as advertising has shifted to big-tech platforms.

When the bill becomes law, Facebook and Google will be forced to negotiate compensation deals with media outlets for posting or linking to their work.

The Online News Act, modeled after an Australian law was passed in 2021, is part of a global trend of proposals aiming to support struggling news industries.

Meta reacted to the Australian law in a similar fashion to its response to the Canadian bill, blocking users from seeing or sharing news on Facebook.

The company later struck a deal with the Australian government after it agreed to make some changes to the law, which led to a lifting of Facebook’s news blockade.

“After further discussions, we are satisfied that the Australian government has agreed to a number of changes and guarantees that address our core concerns about allowing commercial deals that recognize the value our platform provides to publishers relative to the value we receive from them,” Meta said in a statement in February 2021.

Meta later struck content-related licensing deals with Australian publishers.

California lawmakers are working on a comparable measure to Canada’s Online News Act, prompting similar threats from Facebook to block news.

Meta Threatens to Pull News in California

Called the Journalism Preservation Act, the proposal would force tech firms to pay publishers in the form of a “journalism usage fee.”

The legislation, which was approved by the California Assembly on June 1 but has yet to be voted on in the Senate, is aimed at reversing a decline in California’s local news sector.

“Every day, journalism plays an essential role in California and in local communities, and the ability of local news organizations to continue to provide the public with critical information about their communities and enabling publishers to receive fair market value for their content that is used by others will preserve and ensure the sustainability of local and diverse news outlets,” the bill reads.

A day after the measure cleared the lower chamber, Meta issued a statement threatening to pull news content if the bill becomes law.

“If the Journalism Preservation Act passes, we will be forced to remove news from Facebook and Instagram rather than pay into a slush fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers,” Meta spokesman Andy Stone said in a statement on Twitter.

“The bill fails to recognize that publishers and broadcasters put their content on our platform themselves and that substantial consolidation in California’s local news industry came over 15 years ago, well before Facebook was widely used.”

The California bill also would require publishers to devote 70 percent of the proceeds from these fees to create and maintain positions in journalism throughout the state.

“It is disappointing that California lawmakers appear to be prioritizing the best interests of national and international media companies over their own constituents,” Stone said.

Democrat state Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, who sponsored the California bill, wrote on Twiter that Meta’s threat is “a scare tactic that they’ve tried to deploy, unsuccessfully, in every country that’s attempted this.”

“It is egregious that one of the wealthiest companies in the world would rather silence journalists than face regulation,” Wicks said.

Meta has been waging a fight over similar proposals in Congress to compensate publishers for news content that’s shared on its platforms.

“If Congress passes an ill-considered journalism bill as part of national security legislation, we will be forced to consider removing news from our platform altogether,” Stone said in a post on Twitter on Dec. 5, 2022, referring to the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), which closely resembles the California legislation.

The JCPA was cleared by the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier in June, although it has yet to be voted on by the full Senate.

More than two dozen groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Knowledge, and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, oppose the congressional proposal, arguing that it would “create an ill-advised antitrust exemption for publishers and broadcasters” and that it doesn’t ensure that the “funds gained through negotiation or arbitration will even be paid to journalists.”

Bryan Jung and Reuters contributed to this report.