Error 404: Canada’s Missing News Content

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at the 2023 North American Leaders’ Summit. Photo courtesy of Sydney Phoenix.

“This content isn’t available in Canada.”

Since the passage of Bill C-18, the “Online News Act”, last June, Canadians attempting to access news content on Facebook and Instagram are frequently being greeted by this disappointing message. The bill requires social media and search engine companies with significant reach in Canada—namely, Meta and Google—to pay Canadian news companies upon reproducing or facilitating access to their news content. The intent of the legislation, according to the federal government, is to increase funding for Canadian news outlets, which have collectively faced financial struggles in recent years.

In reality, the act has proven to do the opposite. It has diminished traffic for small news outlets and jeopardized public information consumption rates. Instead of monetarily compensating Canadian news publishers, Meta removed news content from its platforms altogether, arguing that it had little to gain from showcasing current events. Under Meta’s new rules, links and content posted by Canadian and international news publishers alike are no longer viewable for residents in Canada.

Meta’s decision has left a gaping hole in Canadian news consumption. As of June 2023, 29% of Canadians regularly accessed their news through Facebook, and 10% did so through Instagram. Canadians between the ages of 18 and 34 especially relied on social media to come across current events. Of course, some readers go the extra mile to keep up with the news on publishers’ sites directly, even when it does not appear on social media. However, frequenting news sites requires a degree of dedication and concern that the casual reader does not necessarily possess. Moreover, for many users, subscription fees make it difficult to access news from publishers directly. As of July 2023, only 15 percent of Canadians had a subscription to a Canadian news website. Even Canadians who can afford one subscription may not be able to afford multiple. Users are thus able to consume a much smaller variety of news when they cannot access it through social media. 

Beyond this, Meta’s news ban disproportionately endangers small news outlets with limited marketing budgets that rely on social media to expand their reach. River Valley Sun is a local news site that caters to small and underserved communities in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. Since 2019, the site has been a source of information for these communities, publishing articles about topics like COVID-19, local elections, and local court decisions. By last summer, the publication had attracted a following of nearly 19,000 on Facebook. Yet when Bill C-18 came into place, the site’s traffic “essentially disappear[ed] overnight” according to its founder, Theresa Blackburn. River Valley Sun is not a standalone case: a December 2023 report on the state of the Canadian information ecosystem from McGill University and the University of Toronto concluded that “many local outlets [had] stopped posting altogether,” partly due to Meta’s ban. It is clear that even if Canada’s largest publishers—such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the National Post—remain unaffected, smaller publishers will find it increasingly difficult to operate. Should the ban continue, it will fuel a chilling effect on reporting that is not as likely to make the front page of national publishers: local news reporting, emergency updates, indigenous community-oriented news, minority language pieces, and more.

While Bill C-18 was not intended to transform Canada into a post-information dystopia overnight, its ramifications on small publishing companies and on Canadian individuals’ rights to information are concerning. Meta’s response to the bill poses a serious threat to Canadian democracy. Staying knowledgeable and having access to a range of current events sites ensures that voters can make informed decisions, but the ban has rendered this process increasingly difficult.

Screenshot of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Instagram page following Meta’s ban on news content for Canadian users. Photo courtesy of CBC News. 

In the face of this threat, it is time for the Canadian federal government to ramp up its efforts to reach a compromise with Meta. Negotiating with a tech giant may not be easy, but in this case, it is necessary. Notably, other countries successfully struck deals that reversed comparable bans in the past. In 2021, Meta de-platformed news content on Facebook in Australia due to proposed legislation that would require it to pay media companies for each piece of news content posted or linked on the platform. As a result, Australia passed an amended version of the legislation that threatened Facebook and Google with the possibility of being forced to pay news outlets. The Australian government’s threat led the two companies to announce over thirty commercial agreements with news outlets amounting to around $200 million CAD, compelling Facebook to reverse its ban. Likewise, in 2014, Google removed its “News” tab in Spain to protest a law that required the company to pay Spanish publishers for linking news content. Google re-established the tab eight years later after the Spanish government allowed it to negotiate deals directly with local media outlets.

The Canadian government should take inspiration from these cases and reduce the amount that Meta is required to pay to Canadian news outlets, a modification that has already convinced Google not to impose a similar ban in Canada. Alternatively, it should consider leveraging the possibility of having to pay—as in Australia—to motivate Meta to strike agreements with news outlets proactively. Furthermore, legislators should give Meta more discretion in its negotiations with media outlets—as in Spain—so that the tech company can find a middle ground with news agencies instead of banning their content completely. In conjunction with these measures, Canada should lessen the scope of news companies to which this legislation applies, showing Meta’s management that it is possible to negotiate deals with relevant companies without divorcing its platform from news altogether.

The Canadian federal government is rightfully concerned about the financial struggles of Canadian news companies. Still, Bill C-18, which further undermines the survival of small news outlets and reduces reader retention, is a step in the wrong direction. For better or for worse, Meta has established itself as a critical player in public discourse and currently wields significant bargaining power. Increasing Canadian news consumption requires preserving the goals of Bill C-18, but shrinking the scope of the legislation, and further incorporating Meta into the conversation by granting it greater discretion in striking deals with news agencies. Negotiating with Meta to find stronger alternatives for supporting the country’s news outlets will bring home Canada’s missing news content and uphold its democratic principles.

Angela Lu (GS ’27) is a staff writer for CPR hailing from Vancouver, Canada. She is interested in politics, economics, and Asia-Pacific studies and can be reached at lu.angela@columbia.edu.