Canada adopted new rules in June this year that assume that tech giants (including Meta and Alphabet) must share the profits from information content posted by media on social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Instagram or X) or seen in search results (e.g. on Google). Lawmakers there decided that tech companies must return part of the publishers’ revenue from posts they exploit. This certainly does not please Meta, which owns, among others, Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook starts protests. It cuts off Canadians’ access to information from around the world

Meta decided that such a decision was detrimental to its interests and – in protest – from Tuesday it blocked all content published by the media on its two most popular social networking sites (in line with previous threats). The American conglomerate could not imagine sharing the profits generated by posts written by the media. Therefore, the blockade was also a way to avoid violating the new Canadian law.

How I am writing crashable website, Meta believes that Canada’s regulation “is based on the false assumption that Meta benefits unfairly from the news content provided on our platform, when in fact the opposite is true.” The company believes that media outlets willingly use Facebook to increase their reach. According to Mashable, the blockade will hit smaller local news outlets in Canada the hardest, as they often rely on social media to operate and are already highly exposed to Mark Zuckerberg’s sudden policy changes.

Internet users report that Meta has decided to block not only the content of the posts themselves, but also the visibility of the entire profile belonging to, among others, the information portal. Those who come across one of these Canadian accounts will only see a blocking message. Many screenshots showing the appearance of the profile belonging to the Canadian news portal were found on X (Twitter).

Canadian residents cannot view this content. In response to Canadian government regulations, news content cannot be displayed in Canada.

– the message displayed in the Instagram application.

Meta (like Alphabet, the company responsible for Google) previously (in early 2021) protested similar regulations in Australia, arguing that the Australian government was trying to punish the company “for content they didn’t ask for.” However, the laws were eventually relaxed somewhat, and the big tech companies eventually reached settlements with the government and publishers. There is no sign of a similar compromise in Canada.