what is online news act
The Online News Act will make it mandatory for platforms like Meta and Google News publishers to negotiate and get paid for the content posted on their social media platforms. The Act was introduced in April last year.
what does meta say
Meta previously stated that less than 3% of what people see in their Facebook feed are posts with links to news articles.
“We believe that news has real social value. The problem is that it doesn’t have much economic value for meta. target canada told the House of Commons Heritage Committee.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) quoted Curran as saying, “So if we’re being asked to compensate news publishers for content that has no economic value to us. That’s the problem.”
Working to not repeat mistakes, says Meta
The tech giant has said, however, that it will be careful, responsible and transparent in removing news from Facebook and Instagram, according to a CBC report.
Curran said, “We intend not to make the same mistakes in Canada that we made in Australia.”
It comes after Meta made a “mistake” by blocking online news from Facebook in Australia. In 2021, Facebook temporarily blocked Australians from sharing the news in response to a bill asking Google and Facebook to enter into commercial deals with news publishers.
Following the accidental blocking of Meta, Australian news organizations were not able to post stories and those who attempted to share current news were informed that they had been blocked. Reportedly, some government communications, including messages about emergency services and some business pages, were also blocked.
“Some of the things that accidentally went under the scope in Australia, we’re working very hard to make sure we don’t do that this time around,” Curran said.
She added that Meta’s team is working to not enforce any potential blocks on government pages, emergency services or community organizations.