Since Meta blocked links to news in Canada last August to avoid paying fees to media companies, right-wing meme producer Jeff Ballingall says he has seen a surge in clicks for his Canada Proud Facebook page.
“Our numbers are growing and we’re reaching more and more people every day,” said Ballingall, who publishes up to 10 posts a day and has some 540,000 followers.
“Media is just going to get more tribal and more niche,” he added. “This is just igniting it further.”
Canada has become ground zero for Facebook’s battle with governments that have enacted or are considering laws that force internet giants — primarily the social media platform’s owner Meta and Alphabet’s Google — to pay media companies for links to news published on their platforms.
Facebook has blocked news sharing in Canada rather than pay, saying news holds no economic value to its business.
It is seen as likely to take a similar step in Australia should Canberra try to enforce its 2021 content licensing law after Facebook said it would not extend the deals it has with news publishers there. Facebook briefly blocked news in Australia ahead of the law.
The blocking of news links has led to profound and disturbing changes in the way Canadian Facebook users engage with information about politics, two unpublished studies shared with Reuters found.
“The news being talked about in political groups is being replaced by memes,” said Taylor Owen, founding director of McGill University’s Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, who worked on one of the studies.
“The ambient presence of journalism and true information in our feeds, the signals of reliability that were there, that’s gone.”
Young people on Instagram will face new barriers if they send or receive nude photos. The move is intended to protect kids against abuse and blackmail, but child advocates say parent company Meta isn’t doing enough.
The lack of news on the platform and increased user engagement with opinion and non-verified content has the potential to undermine political discourse, particularly in election years, the studies’ researchers say. Both Canada and Australia go to the polls in 2025.
Other jurisdictions, including California and Britain, are also considering legislation to force internet giants to pay for news content. Indonesia introduced a similar law this year.
In practice, Meta’s decision means that when someone makes a post with a link to a news article, Canadians will see a box with the message: “In response to Canadian government legislation, news content can’t be shared.”
Where once news posts on Facebook garnered between five million and eight million views from Canadians per day, that has disappeared, according to the Media Ecosystem Observatory, a McGill University and University of Toronto project.
Although engagement with political influencer accounts such as partisan commentators, academics and media professionals was unchanged, reactions to image-based posts in Canadian political Facebook groups tripled to match the previous engagement with news posts, the study also found.
The research analyzed some 40,000 posts and compared user activity before and after the blocking of news links on the pages of some 1,000 news publishers, 185 political influencers and 600 political groups.
A Meta spokesperson said the research confirmed the company’s view that people still come “to Facebook and Instagram even without news on the platform.”
Canadians can still access “authoritative information from a range of sources” on Facebook, and the company’s fact-checking process was “committed to stopping the spread of misinformation on our services,” the spokesperson said.
A separate NewsGuard study conducted for Reuters found that likes, comments and shares of what it categorized as “unreliable” sources climbed to 6.9 per cent in Canada in the 90 days after the ban, compared to 2.2 per cent in the 90 days before.
“This is especially troubling,” said Gordon Crovitz, co-chief executive of New York-based NewsGuard, a fact-checking company which scores websites for accuracy.
Crovitz noted the change has come at a time when “we see a sharp uptick in the number of AI-generated news sites publishing false claims and growing numbers of faked audio, images and videos, including from hostile governments … intended to influence elections.”
School boards in the Greater Toronto Area and Ottawa are taking some of the largest social media companies to court over their products, alleging they are harming students and the broader education system. CBC’s Dale Manucdoc dives into what we know so far about the lawsuit.
Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge in an emailed statement to Reuters called Meta’s blocking of news an “unfortunate and reckless choice” that had left “disinformation and misinformation to spread on their platform … during need-to-know situations like wildfires, emergencies, local elections and other critical times.”
Asked about the studies, Australian Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said via email: “Access to trusted, quality content is important for Australians, and it is in Meta’s own interest to support this content on its platforms.”
Jones, who will decide whether to hire an arbitrator to set Facebook’s media licensing arrangements, said the government had made clear its position to Meta that Australian news media businesses should be “fairly remunerated for news content used on digital platforms.”
Meta declined to comment on future business decisions in Australia but said it would continue engaging with the government.
Facebook remains the most popular social media platform for current affairs content, studies show, even though it has been declining as a news source for years amid an exodus of younger users to rivals and Meta’s strategy of de-prioritizing politics in user feeds.
In Canada, where four-fifths of the population is on Facebook, 51 per cent obtained news on the platform in 2023, the Media Ecosystem Observatory said.
Two-thirds of Australians are on Facebook and 32 per cent used the platform for news last year, the University of Canberra said.
Unlike Facebook, Google has not indicated any changes to its deals with news publishers in Australia and reached a deal with the Canadian government to make payments to a fund that will support media outlets.
PORT ALBERNI, B.C. – RCMP say the body of a second person has been found inside their vehicle after a road washed away amid pouring rain on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Police say two vehicles went into the Sarita River when Bamfield Road washed out on Saturday as an atmospheric river hammered southern B.C.
The body of the other driver was found Sunday.
More coming.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
The B.C. Greens say Sonia Furstenau will be staying on as party leader, despite losing her seat in the legislature in Saturday’s provincial election.
The party says in a statement that its two newly elected MLAs, Jeremy Valeriote and Rob Botterell, support Furstenau’s leadership as they “navigate the prospect of having the balance of power in the legislature.”
Neither the NDP led by Premier David Eby nor the B.C. Conservatives led by John Rustad secured a majority in the election, with two recounts set to take place from Oct. 26 to 28.
Eby says in a news conference that while the election outcome is uncertain, it’s “very likely” that the NDP would need the support of others to pass legislation.
He says he reached out to Furstenau on election night to congratulate her on the Greens’ showing.
But he says the Green party has told the NDP they are “not ready yet” for a conversation about a minority government deal.
The Conservatives went from taking less than two per cent of the vote in 2020 to being elected or leading in 45 ridings, two short of a majority and only one behind the NDP.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Toronto FC captain Jonathan Osorio is making a difference, 4,175 kilometres away from home.
The 32-year-old Canadian international midfielder, whose parents hail from Colombia, has been working with the Canadian Colombian Children’s Organization, a charity whose goal is to help disadvantaged youth in the South American country.
Osorio has worked behind the scenes, with no fanfare.
Until now, with his benevolence resulting in becoming Toronto FC’s nominee for the Audi Goals Drive Progress Impact Award, which honours an MLS player “who showed outstanding dedication to charitable efforts and serving the community” during the 2024 season.”
Other nominees include Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder Sebastian Berhalter and CF Montreal goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois.
The winner will be announced in late November.
The Canadian Colombian Children’s Organization (CCCO) is run entirely by volunteers like Monica Figueredo and Claudia Soler. Founded in 1991, it received charitable status in 2005.
The charity currently has four projects on the go: two in Medellin and one each in Armenia and Barranquilla.
They include a school, a home for young girls whose parents are addicted to drugs, after-school and weekend programs for children in a disadvantaged neighbourhood, and nutrition and education help for underprivileged youth.
The organization heard about Osorio and was put in contact with him via an intermediary, which led to a lunch meeting. Osorio did his due diligence and soon got back to the charity with his decision.
“It was something that I wanted to be a part of right away,” said Osorio, whose lone regret is that he didn’t get involved sooner.
“I’m fortunate now that to help more now that I could have back then,” he added. “The timing actually worked out for everybody. For the last three years I have donated to their cause and we’ve built a couple of (football) fields in different cities over there in the schools.”
His father visited one of the sites in Armenia close to his hometown.
“He said it was amazing, the kids, how grateful they are to be able to play on any pitch, really,” said Osorio. “But to be playing on a new pitch, they’re just so grateful and so humble.
“It really makes it worth it being part of this organization.”
The collaboration has also made Osorio take stock.
“We’re very fortunate here in Canada, I think, for the most part. Kids get to go to school and have a roof over their head and things like that. In Colombia, it’s not really the same case. My father and his family grew up in tough conditions, so giving back is like giving back to my father.”
Osorio’s help has been a godsend to the charity.
“We were so surprised with how willing he was,” said Soler.
The TFC skipper has helped pay for a football field in Armenia as well as an ambitious sports complex under construction in Barranquilla.
“It’s been great for them,” Figueredo said of the pitch in Armenia. “Because when they go to school, now they have a proper place to train.”
Osorio has also sent videos encouraging the kids to stay active — as well as shipping soccer balls and signed jerseys their way.
“They know more about Jonathan than the other players in Colombia,” Figueredo said. “That’s the funny part. Even though he’s far away, they’ve connected with him.”
“They feel that they have a future, that they can do more,” she added. “Seeing that was really, really great.”
The kids also followed Osorio through the 2022 World Cup and this summer’s Copa America.
Back home, Osorio has also attended the charity’s annual golf tournament, helping raise funds.
A Toronto native, he has long donated four tickets for every TFC home game to the Hospital for Sick Children.
Vancouver’s Berhalter was nominated for his involvement in the Whitecaps’ partnership with B.C. Children’s Hospital while Montreal’s Sirois was chosen for his work with the Montreal Impact Foundation.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
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