Meta Will Test Blocking News For Some Canadians

New submitter Peppercopia writes: CTV News is reporting that Meta will begin testing the blocking of news sites in Canada. If the argument is that the social media giants are unfairly benefitting from content from Canadian news organizations, this move should be moot as the 'stealing' would now be stopping. Unfortunately the opposite is likely the case, and the news organizations will find out how important the free traffic and promotion they are getting from social media giants really is. It feels a bit like killing the golden goose to get the eggs. The move is designed to "work out the kinks" before permanently blocking news on its platforms when the Canadian government passes the Online News Act. According to CTV News, the test "will affect up to five percent of its 24 million Canadian users."

"The company says the randomly selected users won't be able to see some content including news links as well as reels, which are short-form videos, and stories, which are photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours." Media organizations will be chosen at random.

Multiple articles about Meta and News?

[oldgraybeard]

Are they going to try and buck their reputation and get in to the news business. Meta All the News you have No Reason to Trust!

Thanks in advance!

[Kernel Kurtz]

Signed,

A Canadian.

Re: Thanks in advance!

[Anonymouse Cowtard]

Yeah this went well when they did it here in Australia.

Great!

[Roger W Moore]

Exactly - the fewer people who get their news filtered by Facebook's algorithms the better.

Re: Great!

[RegistrationIsDumb83]

Yep, that's the crux of it. Social media networks often deprioritize / limit posts that link to external content, simply because the networks don't want their captive audience to leave.

Is there an opt-out for Canadians?

[ajmcello78]

Might be time to dust off my vpn router.

Re:

[caseih]

You seriously get your news from FaceBook?

Re: Is there an opt-out for Canadians?

[ajmcello78]

Hell no! Social Media news is paid promoted content and click bait. Not that anywhere else is much betterâ¦

Re:Is there an opt-out for Canadians?

[tlhIngan]

You seriously get your news from FaceBook?

Shockingly I do know a few people who do.

I think Facebook doing this is a good thing, because it means all that's left is the crap fake news. Makes it really easy to determine - if it's only on Facebook, it's fake.

Might as well start calling it FakeNewsBook.

Re:

[sound+vision]

It's more than a few, I recall surveys that conclude it's a majority of the population. So I'd say it's a big chunk at a minimum.

Disinterested people used to catch news when flipping channels on the TV, or seeing the headlines on the papers for sale outside of Denny's, or maybe they had a local paper that would deliver unsolicited copies to the driveway.

None of that happens anymore. Bookface is the only place they're exposed to the news. And even the "real news" that's left is going down the shitter, becaus

Re:Is there an opt-out for Canadians?

[drinkypoo]

I seriously get news from facebook, but I don't depend on it for news.

That's what Slashdot is for.

Re:

[John Smith 2318]

Have a look at cbc.ca with uBlock Origin (or whatever ad blocker you use) turned off. It is horrifying. About 60% of the page is dedicated to advertising and completely breaks the page layout. And there are people being paid good money to produce this! This used to be our national broadcaster. Now it is a conservative mouthpiece under the control of ViaFoura, a social media moderation service started in the heart of Tory Alberta, by Tories, for Tories. Stephen Harper (conservative Prime Minister) appointed

Re:

[Demondep]

This is completely the opposite of reality. Conservatives constantly talk about "defunding the CBC" because they describe it as a Liberal mouthpiece.

Re:

[John Smith 2318]

That's the beautiful irony of it. Harper was fucking smart. What I state is fact. Go look up ViaFoura (they try to hide their history though, because I have stated this several places). Right wing Albertans are in control of the discussion on cbc.ca. This is fact.

Re:

[Gibgezr]

posting to undo accidental mod

Re:

[sir1963nz]

If we look at the whole of the American continent we get
Canada is the brains
The USA is the torso , Florida being the penis, and Texas the asshole (Hence the lone star)
Central America is the legs
And South America the feet

NOW so many things make sense.....

Not withdrawing from Canada?

[khchung]

Didn't FB threatened to withdraw from some countries over this? Why don't FB withdraw from Canada?

Re:

[Luthair]

I believe they threatened to do this in Australia where they were going to (are?) require Facebook to negotiate with news sites.

In Australia

[PertinaxII]

In Australia which started this, Facebook and Google tested blocking news. But as Australia was so small they decided to subsidise Australia's major media companies, and use some of their content, as being cheaper than the bad publicity and threat of fines. What it amounts to is media companies charging for the sorting and presentation of of their HTTPS links to customers by Google and Facebook. This of course generates advertising revenue, for which they are pay Facebook and Google for the customer data th

Zuckerberg wants a 12th superyacht

[ConstantineXI]

And these greedy people want to stop him!!!! /sarc

Why would you trust Facebook for news anyway?

[Torp]

I mean if a friend shares a piece of news, maybe. If it's something selected by their engagement algorithms it's probably worthless.

And stop calling them Meta. Don't fall for the rebranding.

news and Facebook

[dhizzle]

I can't think of a worse place to get news than a social media site other than perhaps pornhub. What's next, finding rehabilitated sex offenders to dress up as clowns for children's birthday parties? ""They 'trust me'... Dumb f--ks.". M. Zuckerberg 2004

It's worked before, it WILLwork again!

[Felix Baum]

Zuckerberg in 2016 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1... [nytimes.com]