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Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Meta Platforms Inc. , arrives at federal court in San Jose, California, December 20, 2022.
David Paul Morris | bloomberg | Getty Images
meta It announced it would shut down access to news on Facebook and Instagram in Canada after the country’s federal government passed the Online News Act, or Bill C-18, a law that requires tech companies to pay content fees to local media.
“We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Law C-18, which passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada,” Meta, Facebook’s parent company V said statement Thursday.
The company added that it is currently conducting several weeks of product testing to “finish the availability of news in Canada” following Parliament’s decision.
The decision follows a similar law passed last year in Australia, which is imposed on digital platforms such as Facebook and Facebook Google Pay local media when their content is linked to in searches or feeds. In response, Meta took a similar path to its current approach in Canada, blocking users from seeing or sharing news content on Facebook. As stated Some pages are blocked for hospitals and emergency services.
Within a week, Meta relented and reached an agreement with the Australian government, through amendments to the law allowing tech companies two months to negotiate with the media.
Earlier this month, California lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill requiring digital platforms to pay news outlets for the content they host, the first US state to consider such a proposal. If the legislation is approved by the state senate and passed into law, it would require online platforms with at least 50 million monthly active users in the United States, 1 billion active users worldwide or annual net sales in the United States or Market value of more than $550 billion to pay media outlets who are eligible to host their content.
Meta said it would remove news from Facebook and Instagram if the law was passed in California, similar to its current strategy in Canada.
“While these product tests are temporary, we intend to permanently end the availability of news content in Canada following the passage of Bill C-18,” Meta wrote in the statement.
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