Social media giant Meta has reacted to Canada’s Bill C-18 Online News Act by banning all Canadian news providers from its social media platforms Facebook and Instagram – even free community news sources like The Current. That means you can no longer click a post on our Facebook or Instagram page to read our articles. Above photo: NY Times Aug.3 2023
Why has this happened?
New federal legislation that requires tech companies to pay media outlets for Canadian news content they share on their platforms has prompted this drastic response from Meta. Google is expected to follow suit. And the drastic ban doesn’t just mean future news posts – it also applies to past posts on social media. Meta began rolling out its response to Bill C-18 on a “test” basis in June, so you will not always be able to see all the earlier posts. Instead, some of them appear as “blank” posts. For instance, if you check The Current’s Facebook page, LINK: https://www.facebook.com/madvalleycurrent/ you will find only half of the links we posted relating to articles published in August – and the photo for the most recent one is missing! (Circled in the screencap below)
From our end, the process of sharing a news article to social media is no longer consistent. Sometimes the photo is missing or replaced by The Current’s profile picture, sometimes Meta tells us there is an error, and sometimes we get this message:
National broadcasters and media organizations, including the National NewsMedia Council of which The Current is a member, have banded together to fight what they term the anti-competitive stance of Meta and Google.
So how can you keep abreast of community news?
The easiest way is to bookmark our website or add it as a favourite on the home screen of your device. Then the next time you want to catch up on news from the Valley just click on The Current’s profile icon.
If you prefer to have The Current arrive in your email Inbox, you can sign up to receive our e-newsletter using the form on our website.
Also as a Canadian I can’t share news that is from a USA media as well