Q24N (AP) On Thursday, Canada’s Senate passed a bill that will make Google and Meta (Facebook, Instagram) pay media outlets when they use news content on their platforms.
Justin Trudeau’s government and Silicon Valley tech giants have been having a stand-off over this and Canada is creating a level playing field for online advertising companies and the shrinking news industry.
The minister of Canadian Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, is pushing back against what he calls ‘threats’ from Facebook and Google to take away journalism from their sites. Meta announced that they’ll comply with the bill by taking away news from Canadian users on Facebook and Instagram. They didn’t say when it will happen but it will happen before the Online News Act goes into effect in six months.
Lisa Laventure, the head of communications for Meta in Canada, said that in order to follow the Bill C-18 that was just passed in Parliament, news outlets like news publishers and broadcasters will not be available to people in Canada who access their websites.