Back in February 2021, Facebook blocked news on its platforms across Australia to protest a proposed law that would have forced it, along with Google, to pay media companies for stories appearing on their sites.
About a week later, Facebook and Google struck a deal with the Australian government and the restriction stopped. Yet in Canada, such a deal never materialized.
Instead, Ottawa passed the Online News Act in June, requiring tech giants to pay news outlets for content they share or otherwise repurpose.
And on Tuesday, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, responded by announcing it had officially begun to end news availability on its platforms in Canada.
So did Canada miss an opportunity
