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Written by Byron Kaye
(Reuters) – Right-wing meme producer Geoff Ballingal has banned his Facebook page “Canada” since Meta blocked links to Canadian news last August to avoid paying fees to media companies. The number of clicks on the “Proud” page has increased sharply.
“Our numbers are growing and we are reaching more and more people every day,” Ballingal said. Ballingal publishes up to 10 posts a day and has about 540,000 followers.
“Media will become increasingly tribal and niche,” he added. “This just adds fuel to the fire.”
Canada has enacted legislation that would force major internet companies (primarily social media platform owners Meta Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google Inc.) to pay media companies for links to news published on their platforms; or It has become a base for the ongoing battle between the government and Facebook.
Facebook has blocked news sharing in Canada without paying, arguing that news has no economic value to its business.
Canberra appears likely to take similar action in Australia if it attempts to enforce the Content Licensing Act 2021 after Facebook announced it would not extend its contracts with Australian news publishers. . Facebook temporarily blocked news in Australia ahead of the law.
Blocking news links is causing significant and worrying changes in the way Canadian Facebook users engage with political information, two unpublished studies shared with Reuters find.
“Memes are replacing news stories in political circles,” said Taylor Owen, founding director of McGill University’s Center for Media, Technology and Democracy, who worked on one of the studies.
“The periphery of journalism, the truthful information in the feeds, the signals of trust that were there are gone.”
A lack of news on platforms and increased user engagement with opinions and unverified content can undermine political discourse, especially in an election year, researchers say. There is. Canada and Australia will both hold votes in 2025.
Other jurisdictions, including California and the United Kingdom, are also considering legislation that would force internet giants to pay for news content. Indonesia introduced similar legislation this year.
blocked
In effect, Meta’s decision means that when someone posts a post containing a link to a news article, Canadians will see a box with the message, “In accordance with Government of Canada law, news content cannot be shared.” It means to do something.
According to the Media Ecosystem Observatory, a project of McGill University and the University of Toronto, news posts on Facebook once drew between 5 million and 8 million views per day from Canadians, but that is no longer the case. That’s what it means.
Engagement with politically influential accounts such as partisan commentators, academics, and media experts did not change, but responses to image-based posts in Canadian political Facebook groups did not change due to engagement with previous news posts. The study also found that the number has tripled.
The study analyzed about 40,000 posts and compared user activity before and after blocking news links on the pages of about 1,000 news publishers, 185 political influencers, and 600 political groups.
A Meta spokesperson said the research supports the company’s view that people are still “visiting Facebook and Instagram even when there’s no news on the platform.”
Canadians still have access to “trusted information from a variety of sources” on Facebook, and the company’s fact-checking process is “committed to stopping the spread of misinformation about our services,” the spokesperson said. the person in charge said.
A separate study conducted by NewsGuard for Reuters found that the number of likes, comments and shares the magazine classified as “unreliable” sources increased in the 90 days after the ban in Canada. In the 90 days before the ban, it rose to 6.9%, compared to 2.2% in the 90 days before the ban.
“This is particularly concerning,” said Gordon Crovitz, co-chief executive officer of NewsGuard, a New York-based fact-checking firm that evaluates the accuracy of websites.
Krovitz said the change is due to “a sharp increase in the number of AI-generated news sites publishing false claims, including from hostile governments…false audio aimed at influencing elections, This occurred at a time when “the number of images and videos is increasing.” . ”
Canadian Heritage Minister Pascal St. Onge said in an emailed statement to Reuters that Meta’s news blackout was an “unfortunate and reckless choice” and that “in need-to-know situations such as wildfires, “This has led to the spread of misinformation and misinformation on Meta’s platform.” during emergencies, local elections, and other important times. ”
Asked about the research, Australian Treasurer Stephen Jones said in an email: “Access to trusted, high-quality content is important to Australians, and supporting this content on our platform is in Meta’s own interests. It will become.”
Mr Jones will decide whether to hire an arbitrator to determine Facebook’s media licensing arrangements, but will ensure the Australian news media company is “fairly compensated for the news content used on its digital platforms.” He stated that the government’s position has been clearly expressed to Meta, saying that it should receive the same amount.
Meta declined to comment on future business decisions in Australia, but said it would continue to engage with the government.
Facebook remains the most popular news source for current affairs content, despite years of decline as a news source amid an exodus of younger users to rivals and Meta’s strategy to deprioritize politics in user feeds. Research shows that certain social media platforms.
Four-fifths of Canada’s population uses Facebook, and 51% will get their news from the platform in 2023, according to the Media Ecosystem Observatory.
Two-thirds of Australians use Facebook, and 32% used the platform for news last year, according to the University of Canberra.
Unlike Facebook, Google has not indicated any changes to its contracts with Australian news publishers and has reached an agreement with the Canadian government to pay into a fund to support news organizations.
(Reporting by Byron Kaye in Sydney; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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