Facebook-parent Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) said on Saturday that if the country’s Online News Act is passed in its current form, it will no longer provide news content to Canadians on its platforms.
The “Online News Act,” or House of Commons bill C-18, introduced in April last year outlined rules that would require platforms such as Meta and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google to negotiate commercial deals and pay news publishers for their content.
“A legislative framework that requires us to pay for links or content that we do not post, and which are not the reason the vast majority of people use our platforms, is neither sustainable nor workable,” a Meta spokesperson said, citing the country’s suspension of news access.
Meta’s move comes after Google began testing limited news censorship as a possible response to the bill last month.
The Canadian news media industry has asked the government for more regulation of tech companies in order to recoup financial losses sustained over the years as tech behemoths such as Google and Meta steadily gain market share in advertising.
Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said in a statement on Sunday that it was disappointing to see Facebook resorting to threats rather than cooperating with the Canadian government in good faith, and that the C-18 bill had nothing to do with how Facebook makes news available to Canadians.
“All we ask is that Facebook negotiate fair deals with news outlets when they profit from their work,” Rodriguez explained. “This is part of a disappointing trend this week in which tech titans prefer to pull news than pay their fair share.”
Last year, Facebook expressed concern about the legislation and warned that it might be forced to block news-sharing on its platform.
