Meta has said it will not share any content from news outlets after the new online news bill is passed in Canada. As a result, the country’s small and medium-sized publishers are in trouble due to reduced readership, audience and income.
According to the report of the New York Post, Canada recently passed the C-18 bill in Parliament. According to this bill, if news content is shared on social media or other platforms, the media organizations of that country will have to pay money for it. After that, Meta informed that no content of news outlets including news publishers and broadcasters will be shared.
Bill C-18 is called the Online News Act. This bill will come into effect on December 19. But Meta has already stopped sharing news from Canadian news agencies.
Khaled Iwamura, founder and CEO of local news site Insauga.com, said, “We are literally completely unable to generate revenue.” Our earnings were based on news promotion on Facebook.
Iwamura also said that as of last August, 30 percent of Insauga.com’s traffic came from Facebook. Meta News then stopped sharing the link.
He also said, “Canadians are not seeing any news on social media right now, including content from international publications like the New York Post.”
Jeff LG, head of hyperlocal Ontario media company Village Media, said traffic to his company’s 24 websites has dropped by about a fifth since the meter link block began two months ago.
But LG isn’t blaming Meta for its losses. He said the Canadian government is responsible for not heeding the warnings of Canadian news executives. If there is such an opposition to the technology companies, the reaction will be severe.
However, the country’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, this fight is not easy. But in the end it will be right. Because if there is no independent journalism then democracy will disappear.
