Why does the responsibility fall on news organizations? The government pages are not banned on Facebook. Use those to disseminate important information. If Facebook is really the best way reach your citizens then pay them a fee to pin a post at the top of everybody's feed. Or mandate that they do it as part of the emergency services act.

The cbc might be government funded, but the rest of the news media are not. Their job is to hold politicians accountable, not organize evacuation efforts.

This is stupid. I don't use Facebook and I'm certainly no fan of Meta, but they didn't ban news links for the fun of it - they did it in response to the Canadian government making them pay news agencies for news links that gets shared on their services.

I think that's a stupid law, but the Canadians are entitled to do that if they want to. But that means they've intentionally increased the cost to Meta of permitting news links, and Meta has made a commercial decision based on this, which it's also entitled to do. Meta isn't a charity or a public sector agency and to expect this company (of all!) to behave like one is ludicrous.

This is pure cakeism.

Maybe don't rely on a free service from a multi billion dollar American company to disseminate public safety information.

The article doesn't say whether the Canadian government has offered to not tax Facebook for carrying the links to news articles that the law now requires be taxed.

So many corporate cock gobblers commenting on this topic.

Parasites like Meta infiltrated our society, did their damn best to become a monopoly, currently steal from smaller businesses, lost personal data from shitloads of people, makes you their product, and even fueled instability in entire countries. Then people wonder why a government wants to use it to perhaps save a few more lives. It's not like Meta is a company deserving of goodwill, so are you people getting a cent for this PR work or are you just suckers?

Meta says users do not come to its platform for news and forcing the company to pay for content shared on its platforms is unsustainable for its business.

I agree with them here, news articles definitely aren't what I come to Facebook for.

Imagine making a law that could easily screw over non-government funded media and then being shocked when the media gets screwed over because of said law.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

OTTAWA, Aug 18 (Reuters) - The Canadian government on Friday demanded that Meta (META.O) lift a "reckless" ban on domestic news from its platforms to allow people to share information about wildfires in the west of the country.

Some people fleeing wildfires in the remote northern town of Yellowknife have complained to domestic media that the ban prevented them from sharing important data about the fires.

"Meta's reckless choice to block news ... is hurting access to vital information on Facebook and Instagram," Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a social media post.

Chris Bittle, a legislator for the ruling Liberal Party, complained on Thursday that "Meta's actions to block news are reckless and irresponsible."

In response, a Meta spokesperson said by email that the company had activated the "Safety Check" feature on Facebook that allows users to spread the word that they are safe in the wake of a natural disaster or a crisis.

Canadians can use Facebook and Instagram to access content from official government agencies, emergency services and non-governmental organizations, the spokesperson added.

The original article contains 314 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 44%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

People aren't going to miss our on wildfire news is they don't see it on Facebook. SMH

Why can't we have one platform that isn't controlled by one group? And if it's something like Lemmy why isn't it more popular?

If Canada wants to post advertisements on Facebook, they already have an avenue to do this.