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Meta is Axing News in Canada on Facebook and Instagram

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The Facebook login page on mobile on an iPhone 12 miniFacebook and Instagram aren’t very good for news. I personally have noticed that Facebook seems to show screenshots of news articles to a wider audience than an actual link to the article. On top of that, hate and misinformation spreads on Facebook, sometimes even more than real news. Facebook has been downright harmful for news consumption and media literacy.

Just a recap:

And let’s not forget that hate speech and fake news have lead to actual genocide and, despite that, Facebook is still spreading hate and misinformation in Myanmar.

You should absolutely not get your news from Facebook. Use an RSS reader, or an app like Flipboard, Apple News, or Microsoft News.

Still, you likely don’t use Facebook as your primary source of news anymore anyway. While a large percentage of people do, the majority still don’t use social media for news. In Meta’s case, Facebook has downplayed news, showing less news on people’s feeds, despite it driving interaction for a large percentage of users. Still, you might like to see news stories that your friends are interested in sharing on occasion. For those in Canada, that’s now impossible. Why? Because Meta didn’t want to pay for the content they were using.

The News Problem Again

If you read tech news frequently, this probably sounds familiar. In Australia, Meta also removed news from Facebook and Instagram. However, Meta eventually gave in, adding news back to their platforms after Australia amended the rule giving them more time to form deals with publishers and allowing previous agreements to carry over. Those are extremely small concessions. Facebook clearly relies on news more than they think they do, because those concessions don’t change the core of the bill.

The new Canadian law, Bill C-18, otherwise known as the “Online News Act” is similar to other laws that have been passed to protect news publishers, mirroring the Australian law closely. The bill specifically mentions its purpose is to ensure the “sustainability of news business in Canada.” It’s a dire situation. Clickbait and fake news make more money than actual investigative journalism. Facts cost money.

The Online News Act would require social networks and search engines, Facebook included, pay for the content they use on their sites. I know, paying for intellectual property, what is this, every other business in the world? The law would protect news publishers from companies that wish to scrape content, making actually going to the news article pointless. This is especially important as AI is better at summarizing content. Besides, as anyone who has visited the comments on a news article on social media could tell you, people don’t need to even read the article to have an argument over the headline and blurb in the comments.

Canada’s law would ensure that, if a company uses the work of journalists, they owe them for that work. That includes images and text. Because, let’s face it, articles on Facebook don’t translate to clicks and ad revenue for these sites, but Facebook, Instagram, and others still get to use it for content to profit from. News publishers just want a cut of that profit, and governments looking to preserve the free press agree.

Meta Seems to Believe News is Dead

If the news provided no value to Facebook, they wouldn’t have created a news tab to scrape and highlight the content of journalists. They’d simply block news from their network altogether. They don’t do that though. Oh, sure, they run a quick protest for a few days, maybe a week or two, whenever a nation makes a law that people deserve to be paid for the work you’re profiting from, but Meta knows their platform needs the news. People still, inexplicably, get much of their news from Facebook.

“Asking a social media company in 2023 to subsidize news publishers for content that isn’t that important to our users is like asking email providers to pay the postal service because people don’t send letters any more.”

– Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs

Meta seems to claim their social media is a replacement for news. It’s not. Social media is more like a newspaper dispenser, showing the headlines to entice users to get the news. Someone still has to pay for that paper.

A 2020 study found that around 36% of U.S. users say they use Facebook as a source of news, and 11% from Instagram. That’s why Meta puts so much effort into scraping and showing content created by journalists. Meta claiming they are “subsidizing” news is extremely dishonest. Facebook uses news content for profit, then refuses to pay for it. That’s the entire issue. They scrape content, then don’t pay for it. This isn’t just about keeping one of the most important industries alive, it’s about ensuring they’re paid for their work as a portion of the profits they drive for others. If Facebook’s profiting from news sites, they owe news sites for that content.

Should News Sites Get Paid?

Absolutely! Okay, perhaps I’m biased, but I don’t expect to see a penny out of any of this, even if a law like this passed in my country. I simply would not get enough traffic to warrant a payment… ever. That’s fine, this isn’t my primary source of income, I actually operate it at a loss. However, for journalists, writing is their primary source of income, but that only works if they’re paid for it.

Legitimate news sites are suffering thanks to social media. Facebook is more likely to elevate stories and posts that create controversy and a large number of interactions. This elevates fake news, hate speech, and clickbait. However, when Facebook does share real news stories, they scrape that content, often stealing a click. That means they’re using the content without proper attribution or payment. They’re profiting from the news without sharing a portion of those profits with the people who actually put the work into creating that content. It would be like sampling or copying portions of a song without acknowledgement and royalties.

Proper, factual, unbiased journalism is one of the most important pillars of a functional democracy. We have to protect the news. Social networks clip more than headlines. They use photos, blurbs, and AI-generated summaries to enrich their own websites and steal traffic from news. That’s why news is suffering. Subscriptions and ads worked for journalism for decades, but the scope has increased, profits are down online, and social media is adding the last nail in the coffin by using content without paying for it. With these laws, we’ll be able to ensure journalists are paid for their work when it’s used elsewhere for profit.

Meta will likely cave, as they have in the past. They need relevant news stories on their feed to continue to push the idea of Facebook being your “one stop” homepage. Without it, engagement will drop, as audiences expect news on Facebook. Meta gets more out of publishers than publishers get out of Facebook. With laws like the one Meta is protesting now, that can be a fairer relationship.

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