Heritage Minister says Meta news block endangers lives as Canadians flee wildfires (www.thecanadianpressnews.ca)

submitted 1 year ago by stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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Canada's Heritage Minister redoubled her calls for Meta to end its ban on Canadian news content on Facebook and Instagram on Saturday as thousands of Canadians continued their rush to escape wildfires ravaging British Columbia and the Northwest Territories.

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[-] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

I honestly don't get this thing about FB blocking news - it's because they are being forced to pay the news organisations, right? But why are they being forced to pay them - isn't it good for the news organisations to have their links appear on FB, so that people click those links, read their articles and see their ads?

I'm probably missing something, but I don't get it.

[-] orcrist@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

The Candian media wanted money. Thus a news link tax. (Australia tried the same thing, failed too.) But FB and Google called their bluff. Turns out FB and Google don't make money by linking to Canadian media, so they're happy to just delist those URLs.

The Canadian conservative politicians wanted the PR for attacking the evil US liberal tech giants. So they were willing to gamble, because they don't actually care about the media companies they claim to have been protecting.

Everything you wrote is true, but also traditional media is largely dying off these days. They're desperate for cash from anywhere.

[-] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Thanks, that's interesting.

It's a shame, because I really don't like FB much, and I would consider myself a supporter of traditional news media (quality stuff at least) - but here, I just can't see how they think they have a case.