Meta to end news access for Canadians if Online News Act becomes law

(Reuters) -Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc announced on Saturday that it will stop Canadians from accessing news content on its platforms if Canada’s Online News Act is passed in its current form.

The “Online News Act,” The House of Commons bill C-18 was introduced in April 2013. It established rules that would force platforms like Meta Inc and Alphabet Inc to make commercial deals with news publishers and pay them for their content.

“A legislative framework that compels us to pay for links or content that we do not post, and which are not the reason the vast majority of people use our platforms, is neither sustainable nor workable,” According to a Meta spokesperson, the reason was to suspend access to news in the country.

Meta’s action comes after Google began testing news censorship in limited settings last month as a response to the bill.

Canada’s news media industry asked for greater regulation of tech companies in order to recover financial losses over the years that have seen tech giants such as Google and Meta gain more market share of advertising.

Pablo Rodriguez, Canadian Heritage Minister, stated that it was disappointing that Facebook used threats to stop them from working with the Canadian government in good will. The C-18 bill did not have anything to do with how Facebook makes news accessible to Canadians.

“All we’re asking Facebook to do is negotiate fair deals with news outlets when they profit from their work,” Rodriguez said. “This is part of a disappointing trend this week that tech giants would rather pull news than pay their fair share.”

Facebook raised concerns last year about the legislation, and warned that it could be forced to block news-sharing via its platform.

(Reporting by Kanjyik Gosh and Lavanya Ahire, Bengaluru, Ismail Shakil from Ottawa and Nia Williams in British Columbia; Editing and editing by Diane Craft & Lisa Shumaker