Canadians are calling on Meta to lift its news ban so they can share news about the wildfires in the Northwest Territories and British Columbia.
Meta's news ban is preventing Canadians from sharing vital information about the wildfires ripping through western Canada::Canadians are calling on Meta to lift its news ban so they can share news about the wildfires in the Northwest Territories and British Columbia.
As much as Meta shouldn't be relied on for news, Canada creating legislation which stops Meta showing news then crying when Meta doesn't show news is frankly laughable and I don't know how their government didn't see it coming
Lol Meta has some good PR. The government did not stop Meta from sharing news. They stopped them from profiting off someone else's work without paying for it. Meta was told they had to start paying and decided to stop showing it entirely.
The Government telling meta and Google they'd have to pay to link has led to this entirely predictable result, and the companies said they would block links since very early on in the process. Independent experts (e.g., Michael Geist) also said that C18 was a bad idea.
It's ridiculous to complain about someone complying with laws that you (the government) drafted and passed.
They told Meta that they had to pay to so much as host links to news sites on their platforms.
ie they had to pay to literally direct users to news sites, where news sites would make money off advertising to them, allowing the news sites to double dip. If anyone's got good PR, it's the news sites (would you believe it, the news sites have good connections with the press?)
There were ways to stop Meta from scraping news sites, but they decided to effectively stop them from even sharing news. They could've stopped the bill at purely "reproducing" news, but no, they got greedy and decided to make them pay for the privilege to give news sites free advertising. Why on earth would Meta agree to that, and why is it surprising that they just turned around and said no?
If I need to pay a news company every time I decide to text you a link to their site because I thought it was interesting, I'd stop linking to them too.
I hate meta and I actually went out of my way to get my family and friends off of their platforms, but in this case I don't think they're in the wrong. Even if we roll with the logic that they should be paying for these links, then what is wrong with them deciding to not profit off of the links now by not showing them? Isn't that the right thing to do?
It seems to me the news agencies and the Canadian government just wants extra revenue, and when their plan didn't go as expected they're now just crying and bit**ing about facing consequences of their actions.
For their next trick, the Canadian government will raise gas taxes and impose new tolls on all major highways, and then complain when people ignore orders to evacuate burning cities.
This is mainly the result of the Canadian government grasping for anything to blame Facebook for not playing their stupid games, but the fact that this argument is getting any traction at all suggests that the notion of personal responsibility is in an alarming state.
Apparently, if you're a grown adult who only gets their news from a single company that isn't even primarily a news company, even after knowing they've banned domestic news that could be relevant to your safety, it's that company's job to be a complete news source, not your job to look at actual news.
Amazingly, some people actually want to be treated like children and have their thinking and choosing done for them, and those people are a godsend to those who demand unreasonable amounts of control. "Poor Mr. Headuphisass is going to suffer the direct consequences of his actions if you don't do x, y, and z that happen to align with our interests, you monster!". Blegh.
How the fuck is meta the most used means of that information being given to those who need it? What the fuck man how did we let that happen. Imagine the places that haven’t had something to test their systems of communication. Damn.
the government's argument in implementing the link tax was that facebook doesn't provide any value, they just take news for free and make a profit off it.
so facebook stopped linking to news. and now they're complaining because facebook isn't providing the valuable service that they used to. so does facebook provide value by linking to news, or not?
Some people are complaining, certainly not everyone.
And no, it's not a valuable service. Just go to CTV or CBC news websites and get all the wildfire news you need. People do not need to get their news from Facebook.
i mean, i mostly agree. i don't get my news from facebook, and most people i know who use facebook say it's a generally more pleasant experience without news on the site.
but when i say "now they're complaining" i don't just mean random people. the people that are complaining are Justin Trudeau and David Eby. If they want facebook to link to news sites, they shouldn't charge facebook money to do that. most websites pay facebook money to link to them.
so facebook stopped linking to news. and now they’re complaining because facebook isn’t providing the valuable service that they used to. so does facebook provide value by linking to news, or not?
Same thing happened in Australia with similar legislation... the problem is, local county fire authorities who don't receive sufficient funding utilise social media to provide regular updates.... Meta (facebook at the time) shut off access for the day, and people went batshit. It definitely exposed a real flaw in that sparsely located, small county fire authorities don't have a good way to communicate to the people during bushfires.
The problem here is that they want to reach a wide audience... and the wide audience are more likely to be using something owned by Meta to seek information.
I hope someone stands up to the Meta mafia. Governments listen the fuck up and make it so your people aren't reliant on foreign entities to obtain vital information.
[EDIT]
I'll also add that while the county fire authorities in Australia might have apps to communicate, these are run by the state governments, so the reach of the individual apps is pretty variable. People who live in bushfire prone areas will probably have an app and their radio going to listen out on alerts to leave, but visitors, new residents, people passing through etc are pretty unlikely to think to download the CFA app for the state.
'oh look, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions'
I feel for people, but this is exactly what the government legislated. We can't demand they pay a tax if they want to do business and then get mad when they decide to not do that business here.
Can assure you that lots of news and evacuation coordination information is still being shared. The same groups that were able to evacuate 95% of the population of a territory in a few days were able to adapt to sharing news differently pretty easily.
In June, Canadian lawmakers passed a bill that would require companies like Meta and Google to pay news outlets to share their content.
In response, Meta banned users in Canada from viewing or sharing news content on its sites beginning August 1.
"Meta's reckless choice to block news before the Act is in force is hurting access to vital information on Facebook and Instagram," Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge tweeted Friday.
Here, residents are posting copied-and-pasted versions of news articles and live reported updates to circumvent the ban and continue sharing vital information about the wildfires.
And in British Columbia, just southwest of the Northwest Territories, officials have declared a state of emergency as nearly 400 wildfires burn and thousands are evacuated from the city of Kelowna and the surrounding region, CBC News reports.
"People in Canada can continue to use our technologies to connect with their communities and access reputable information, including content from official government agencies, emergency services and non-governmental organizations."
The original article contains 375 words, the summary contains 163 words. Saved 57%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
In this case, it's the Canadian government that is evil. Imagine them telling lemmy sites that they had to pay for news? It's basically the same thing.
It's a complete destruction of the free and open internet. Canada doesn't get to declare war on the internet and then cry because Meta responded exactly how they said they would respond.