Social media giant Meta’s ban on news access on its platforms in Canada is an “epic miscalculation” that could damage journalism and promote the spread of misinformation and fake news, experts are warning.
The company announced the move on Tuesday, saying they had begun the process to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for users in Canada.
The policy came in retaliation for a new law, the Online News Act, created in an effort to help shore up revenue at Canadian journalism outlets by forcing intermediaries such as Meta and Google’s parent company Alphabet to chip in.
The company has described the legislation, Bill C-18 – passed on 18 June – as “unworkable” and argued that the only way to comply with the law is to “end news availability for people in Canada”.
Some Instagram and Facebook users in the country are finding themselves unable to share links to news articles on those platforms, including links to stories from non-Canadian outlets including the Guardian, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Al Jazeera Afrique.
Earlier this year Google also said it would remove links from search results but has yet to carry out the threat. It remains unclear whether the search giant and other platforms such as Twitter and Bing will follow Meta’s lead.
Media experts warn that the move could simply leave a void which will be filled by peddlers of disinformation.
“The end result could be Meta removing access to almost all legitimate news organizations, but leaving up links to news stories from disreputable outlets, or blogs and other one-person operations,” wrote Laura Hazard Owen of Harvard’s Nieman Lab.
Michael Geist, law professor at University of Ottawa and the Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law, said Canadian media would be hit hard, especially small and independent outlets which depend on social media to build their readership. “This policy is a disaster,” he said.
Timothy Caulfield, a University of Alberta professor who researches health and science misinformation, said that even before the passage of the new law, social media and online forums were a dominant force in spreading unproven therapies and conspiracy theories about conventional medicine.
“There’s a large body of evidence now that tells us that misinformation spread online about health does real harm. The anti-vax nonsense is just one example,” he said.
“If credible content decreases, the problem is just going to intensify.”
Politics and elections may also be affected. Following the 2016 US election that saw Donald Trump elected, Meta, then Facebook, announced it would invest in election integrity.
But Ahmed Al-Rawi, the head of the Disinformation Project at Simon Fraser University, said limiting news access on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram compromises those investments.
“News is one of the main columns of democracy,” he said. “If you don’t allow factual news to be disseminated on your platform, why do you even claim that you are there for the public good?”
Al-Rawi also said the inability to link to news could lead more people to share screenshots, which are easy to doctor using image-editing software or AI technologies.
Users’ inability to authenticate news in-platform by vetting links could lead to the growth of fake news, he said, especially since Meta only works with a relatively small fact-checking team in Canada.
Al-Rawi also noted that Canada’s federal parties – including the ruling Liberals, the architects of C-18 – are still spending on Facebook ads, even after the bill’s passage.
Financially supporting Facebook while simultaneously depriving Canadians of news access on the same platform smacks of hypocrisy, he said.
Like Al-Rawi, Geist also said the government shares considerable blame for the impact the move will have on Canadian media.
“There’s plenty of people who believe that the platforms are to blame, but I have to say, that this outcome was entirely foreseeable and the government shrugged its shoulders and just sort of downplayed the risks,” said Geist.
He said now that the bill has become law, the Canadian government will have to ask itself some hard questions about how much a link is worth. Meta, too, will also have to figure out how much it wants to soften as other countries look to the Canadian debacle as a possible precedent.
Either way, Geist said, it’s a lose-lose-lose situation. “There are no winners here.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
