c-18 (10. 833)

Via friend of the blog par excellence, Nag on the Lake, we learn that in order to protect beleaguered journalistic outlets—many of whom have been forced to shutter or severely curtail reporting—and local coverage (plus perhaps with the added bonus of slowly the spread of fake news), which Facebook’s and Instagram’s parent company is decrying as an unnecessary link tax (previously), the legislator of Canada has passed the Online News Act, prompting Meta to selectively, incrementally block access to such content on social media rather than entertain compensating small reporting operations for their work. Potentially impacting all headline aggregators, it remains to be seen what percentage of Facebook’s audience would be willing to leave the walled-garden for reputable sources, rather than what’s propagated or suggested to them, ahead of the law coming in to force, Facebook, leaving unchanged its services for Canada otherwise, will run trials cutting journalistic content for an experimental slice of five percent of its users and study the outcome—a rather disturbing and non-informed news blackout given the social media giant’s history of being sandbox unburdened by ethical parameters. Steeled against the pressure campaigns of the internet giants, other jurisdictions are expected to follow Canada’s example.