After the approval of the Online News Act by the Canadian Senate last Thursday (22), Meta announced that it would no longer provide access to links and journalistic content on Facebook and Instagram feeds to Cananá users. . The law in question requires online platforms to pay news sites for publishing their content, and Big Tech disagreed with the new terms.

hit the hammer

In a statement, Meta said that “to comply with Bill C-18, media content, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada.” the North American country, Rachel Curran, recently reinforced that the news has no economic value for the company and that financial compensation would be outside its scope.

Since June 1, the company has been conducting tests to remove news links from Facebook and Instagram in Canada. Despite the blocking measure involving links to news sites, the company said it was ready to fight misinformation through its fact-checking network.

After approval by the Senate, the so-called Online News Law will come into force in the country after going through a few more bureaucratic steps. Meta has announced plans to remove news links from its services even before the standards are approved by members of the legislature.

Is it in Brazil?

Here, the so-called Fake News PL (PL 2630/2020) is being processed in Congress. The objective of the proposal is to remunerate companies for journalistic content circulating on their platforms. If approved, negotiations determined by it could be conducted collectively or individually between communication vehicles and technology companies.

However, specific details on this process should be defined in a future regulation. The vote on the PL in the Chamber of Deputies, originally scheduled for May, was postponed at the request of the rapporteur, federal deputy Orlando Silva (PC do B-SP) due to the lack of votes in favor of approval. Despite this “flexibility”, it is not possible to be sure of the attitude that Meta would adopt in Brazil if the PL were approved and sanctioned.

In 2021, Facebook members in Australia were also barred from consuming news content on Facebook due to similar legislation. Another big company that has gone down the same path is Google, as it conducted tests to block access to news in Canada.