It’s hard to believe nearly a year has passed since Meta’s ban on news sharing in Canada came into effect.
Many of you have likely been impacted in some way; perhaps you’ve tried to post a news link to your Facebook page — an interesting story, your kids’ championship-winning team, or the latest city council drama — but you’re blocked from doing so.
“In response to Canadian government legislation, news content can’t be shared,” the notification reads.
So you post a screenshot of the article instead; or, you simply move on, annoyed by a news blackout that has dragged on for months, with no end in sight.
But for those of us working in local news, the past year has been another devastating blow to an already struggling industry.
So, how did we get here?
In June 2023, the federal government passed the Online News Act (Bill C-18); the idea (inspired by similar law in Australia) was to force tech giants like Meta and Google to compensate Canadian news organizations for reposting their content. Proponents argued it would be a lifeline to Canada’s struggling news industry; critics called the law flawed, unfair and unworkable.
Big tech fired back threatening to block Canadian links from their sites — and while Google eventually reached a deal last fall, Meta called the government’s bluff and followed through.
Since Aug. 2023, the majority of Canadians haven’t been able to view or share links to any news site, “gutting” the visibility of local news, officials say.
The Journal’s Facebook and Instagram pages, which had reached thousands of followers, were quickly shuttered. At the time, we thought the ban might last a few days — maybe weeks — until the government and Meta worked out a deal. We were even featured by NBC News on how we were coping with the ban, as a small, locally-owned news outlet.
But months went by, and nothing changed. Meta isn’t backing down, and now, what was intended to help save journalism, seems to be doing more harm.
The loss of news on Facebook has already had profound consequences for Canadians, according to a recent study out of McGill University and the University of Toronto, noting that local outlets have been hit the hardest.
“While large, national news outlets were less reliant on Facebook for visibility and able to recoup some of their Facebook engagement regardless, hundreds of local news outlets have left the platform entirely, effectively gutting the visibility of local news content,” researchers said.
In 2023 alone, 36 local news outlets closed in Canada, according to the Local News Research Project.
"The loss of journalism on Meta platforms represents a significant decline in the resiliency of the Canadian media ecosystem,” said Taylor Owen, one of the Principal Investigators of the Media Ecosystem Observatory and co-author of the study.
And what happens when the news goes dark? Misinformation spreads, and civic engagement declines.
Social media users resort to sharing memes, screenshots, misleading clickbait, and links to ‘alternative’ and unreliable news sources.
“Viral content producers feed on news content, make it more sensational by adding misleading or false details and publish it on their Facebook pages or Instagram accounts,” Quebec University journalism professor, Jean-Hughes Roy recently told The Guardian. “Such content isn’t blocked by Meta, while actual news is.”
Researchers also found that political discussion groups on Facebook appear to have replaced news links with less-informative content. Or, they're posting screenshots of news articles — which means, the content is seen, but news sites aren't getting the web traffic or revenue.
“Just from a reach point of view, it is very sad to spend hours and hours on a really good story, a proper good exclusive, and publish it, and then see it gets maybe 20 per cent of the reach it would have got before August 2023,” Iain Burns, managing editor with Now Media Group told the Canadian Press.
But there’s some hope, including the province’s recent announcement to redirect Crown corporations such as the LCBO, the Ontario Cannabis Retail Corporation (OCRC), the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG), and Metrolinx to invest 25 per cent of their advertising spend to Ontario-based news businesses.
“This is forward-looking, smart policy that other provinces, municipalities and the federal government can follow, and it does not involve any additional taxpayer dollars,” said Paul Deegan, president and CEO of News Media Canada, noting that “fact-based, fact-checked coverage of schools, cops, courts, politicians and businesses — holding the powerful to account — costs real money and demands advertising revenue.”
In the meantime, we hope our readers will continue to stay connected: bookmark our homepage, sign up for our daily newsletter, follow us on other platforms like ‘X’ and Reddit. Do the same for our local friends in radio and print, too.
Because when the news goes dark, we all lose out.
Tara Jeffrey is an award-winning journalist, editor and an owner with The Sarnia Journal.