Meta’s news ban in Canada has led to a media disaster. What does that mean for US efforts to wrangle big tech platforms?

It’s been a year since Meta yanked Canadian news from its platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and Threads – in response to a government bill that would see tech giants pay news outlets for linking to their online content. The Online News Act, which is similar to legislation passed in Australia, led to threats from both Meta and Google that they would pull news content originating in Canada. Google eventually struck a deal with media outlets; Meta did not, and it shows no sign of changing course a year later.

The full effects of Meta’s news ban are just coming to light. A report released this month by the Media Ecosystem Observatory finds that nearly half of online news media engagement has dropped in the last year, including 85% on Facebook and Instagram, a loss that “has not been compensated by increases on other social media platforms.”

It also finds that nearly a third of local news outlets that were active on social media are now dormant. What’s more, a whopping 75% of the public is unaware of the ban that has led to Canadians consuming less news – and more disinformation – than ever before.

“Canadians continue to learn about politics and current events through Facebook and Instagram,” the report summarizes, “but through a more biased and less factual lens than before, and many Canadians do not even realize the shift has occurred. They do not appear to be seeking news elsewhere.”

It’s a worst-of-all-worlds scenario in Canada as a struggling media industry and a growing online disinformation problem collide, depriving outlets of much-needed views and shares, and readers of access to reliable, high-quality journalism. In an ironic twist, a law meant to preserve news media by filling the coffers of news outlets, allowing them to keep staff and grow coverage, is contributing to its demise.

Will the Liberals stand up for their law?

The Liberal government isn’t backing down in the face of this new data, though. Ottawa is now saying Meta may still indeed be regulated by way of the Online News Act since some news is still sneaking through the block, which looks like a technicality but speaks to the government’s intention to double down on the law.

Moreover, there’s big money at stake. Google has signed a CA$100 million dollar deal to fund journalism. That money will be managed by small independent outlets focused on digital journalism. It’s too early to say what effect the money will have on news media in Canada, since the program is just starting to roll out, and there’s plenty still to be determined. But you know what they say – tens of millions here, tens of millions there, it eventually starts to add up to real money.

Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s global macro-geopolitics practice, says “The de-platforming of Canadian news content is probably not what the government expected when they launched their Online News Act, and it’s having the perverse effect that now Canadians are less exposed to quality, reliable journalism and reporting on social media platforms.”

But he doesn’t expect Canada will back down “unless there’s a change in government.”

By the next federal election in 2025, there may be one as the Conservatives are up in the polls. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has criticized the legislation and suggested it was “like 1984,” claiming it’s censorship and expressing concern that the government was trying to ban Canadians from seeing the news. That tone suggests he may be inclined to rescind the law, or at least change it.

US efforts to extract media payments from platforms are moving … slowly

Canada isn’t the only country working on securing payments from the tech sector to offset the harmful effect their advertising market dominance has on news media. But the Canadian experience may serve as a warning, or at least a lesson, for US lawmakers.

A bill before Congress, the Journalism Competition Act of 2023, would set a process for collective negotiation between news media and online platforms for payments to the former in exchange for access to their content. Introduced in 2021, in the last Congress, by Sen. Amy Klobuchar and again in 2023 for the current one, the bill is going nowhere fast. It has seen no movement since it was placed on the Senate’s legislative calendar in July 2023.

The state of California is considering a similar bill. Meta has threatened to block news there if the bill, which enjoys bipartisan support, passes. The California Journalism Preservation Act passed the state assembly 46-6 and is now in the Senate, where it’s working its way through committee in the face of opposition from tech giants who claim the bill won’t support local journalism, but rather act as a giveaway to hedge funds and big media companies.

A 2023 white paper found that Google and Meta made billions from linking to news – $21 billion and $4 billion respectively – and “owed” $10-12 billion and $1.9 billion annually to publishers as payment for the profit they make from news media content.

Scott Bade, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s geo-technology unit, expects the US won’t rush to emulate Canada’s approach. He notes that a divided Congress and looming election means lawmakers won’t be keen to make headway on a controversial tech regulation bill. The latest data from Canada won’t exactly spur action, either.

When it comes to California, where Democrats have control of the state legislature, the chances of a bill passing may be higher, he notes, but they still face intense lobbying from the tech industry, and it’s not a given that Gov. Gavin Newsom would even sign it.

A matter of life and death

The consequences of news bans are real. They suppress the capacity of media organizations to get factual, reported information to the public – and thus put media, particularly local outlets, at further risk of folding. They also facilitate the flow of unreliable information. The consequences of this dynamic can be quite literally a matter of life and death.

The recent far-right, anti-immigrant riots in the United Kingdom were violent and included fires being lit at hotels in which asylum-seekers were staying. There have been hundreds of arrests so far after online misinformation and disinformation spread, claiming that a Muslim immigrant was responsible for the stabbing deaths of three youths in Southport – in fact, the suspect is a non-Muslim who was born in Cardiff.

As Time reports, the riots were brutal as “[f]ar-right groups were seen looting, attacking police and locals, and performing Nazi salutes in the street. As the mobs chanted ‘send them home’ and ‘Islam out,’ they also destroyed mosques, libraries, and graffitied racial slurs on homes.”

Ahead of the upcoming US presidential election and 2025 Canadian federal election, there is worry that online disinformation will pose a serious, even “unprecedented” threat, which could lead to harassment, intimidation, and even violence.

The next war

Governments are trying to extract funds from well-heeled tech platforms and struggling to keep media outlets afloat while fighting to displace misinformation and disinformation with more reliable sources of news. But track records are spotty, and the future is uncertain.

In some ways, the media funding battle is the “last war,” says Bade, and a new struggle is increasingly emerging over artificial intelligence and the “bigger threat” of content stripping.

“If media companies are going to have collective negotiation with tech companies,” Bade says, “it probably should be over that.”