Meta Tests Removal of Canadian News Content in Response to Proposed Online News Act

Meta’s getting serious about its threats to remove Canadian news publishers from its apps, because of this of Canada’s proposed Online News Act, with Meta now conducting live tests to see how things will look without Canadian outlets in its apps, with a view to be sure that it may well effectively implement a ban, within the case of the Act being passed by Canadian Parliament.

As per Meta:

“As we prepare to comply with the laws, we’ll begin tests on each [Facebook and Instagram] that can limit some users and publishers from viewing or sharing some news content in Canada.”

Meta says that it’ll launch randomized testing of the removal of Canadian news content, with users to see a pop-up notification in the event that they try to share such in its apps. 

“Product tests will impact news outlets each inside and out of doors of Canada. Meta is identifying news outlets on our platforms based on the present language of Bill C-18. As drafted, the laws states that news outlets are in scope in the event that they primarily report on, investigate or explain current issues or events of public interest.”

Meta says that Canadian publishers will proceed to have access to their Facebook and IG pages, but a few of their content won’t be visible, inside or outside of Canada, in either app, for the period of the test.

It’s a big step, which seems designed to indicate Canadian legislators that Meta is indeed for real about its threat to remove Canadian news content outright, because of this of the proposed laws.

Canada’s Online News Act, because it currently stands, follows the same formula to Australia’s Media Bargaining Code, with the stated aim to handle market imbalance inside the local ad industry. With Meta and Google dominating the ad market, the priority is that local publishers are losing out, which is resulting in less coverage – and thus, a less informed public – as a consequence of the reduction in diversity inside the knowledge sphere.  

As such, some governments are searching for to handle this imbalance, by forcing Meta and Google to pay for any news links which might be shared of their apps, with the understanding being that each firms actually profit from such. Though as Meta has repeatedly argued, the publishers themselves actually profit more from Facebook exposure than Facebook does from the engagement that content sees.

Meta’s actually been working to reduce the reach of political news content in its apps, as a consequence of user backlash around angst and argument, while Meta’s own stats also show that user exposure to posts that include external links has declined by some 50% during the last two years.

Which is a sobering stat for social media managers – but it surely underlines Meta’s stated case that it actually doesn’t need news content, and shouldn’t be forced to pay for it, as the top result will only be less reach for publishers as a consequence of a Facebook ban.

Canadian Parliament remains to be considering the proposal, but Meta’s clearly drawing a line within the sand, and underlining its willingness to undergo with a full local news content ban, if the laws are implemented.

The impacts here might be significant, and it’ll be interesting to see if Meta does take the following steps in its response.