Facebook might ban news sharing in Canada if the country passes legislation requiring the company to pay news outlets for their content. In a post shared on Friday, Facebook parent company Meta says Canada's proposed Online News Act is false.
The Online News Act requires online platforms to share revenue with publishers who aggregate their news from them. The goal is to make sure news outlets are paid fairly. Meta says that the legislation wasn't invited to the House of Commons Heritage Committee meeting.
The News Media Bargaining Code was introduced in Australia last year and requires Facebook and Google to pay for news on their platforms. Although Australia passed the law, it wasn't without a fight from Facebook and Google. In response, Facebook switched off news sharing in the country, as well as threatening to remove its search engine from the country.
Facebook reversed its news ban after Australia amended its legislation. News outlets and government agencies were affected by the temporary ban on Facebook. Facebook was accused of using an overly broad definition of a news publisher to cause chaos in the country. The company says the disorder was an error.
The sharing of news content on Facebook in Canada is defined by the Online News Act.
If Canada doesn't change its laws, Facebook will block news in the country. According to Meta, posts with links to news stories make up less than 3% of the content on users' Facebook feed.
Meta states that if the draft legislation becomes law, we may be forced to consider whether we continue to allow the sharing of news content on Facebook in Canada.
News outlets benefit from having their stories posted on Facebook, according to Meta. According to Meta, registered news publishers in Canada received over 1.9 billion clicks over the last year, bringing in an estimated $230 million Canadian dollars. According to the legislation, it will make it harder for Canadians to find and share trusted and authoritative news online, and that publishers already benefit from the traffic they receive through the internet.
According to a statement obtained by the WSJ, the Minister of Canadian Heritage said that Facebook pulls from their Australian example. Rodriguez wants tech giants to negotiate fair deals with news outlets when they make money from their work.
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