Why are some Facebook and Instagram users in Canada losing access to news stories?

Lawmakers in Canada are trying to help newsrooms floundering in the social media age by making said platforms help out. The country’s Online News Act, introduced last spring, would essentially require social media companies to pay Canadian news outlets for the content they post to the companies’ platforms.

Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has responded with an emphatic “no way.” The company announced this week that it is going to start testing removing news content from its platforms. Over the next few weeks, some Canadian account holders will be unable to view news content, and some news organizations will be unable to post news content to the platforms. According to Mashable and Reuters, those who will be affected by this test will be notified.

“Publishers choose to share their content because it benefits them to do so, whereas it isn’t particularly valuable to us at all. As such, we’ve taken the difficult decision that if this flawed legislation is passed, we will have to end the availability of news content on Facebook and Instagram in Canada,” Meta said in its announcement.

“When a big tech company ... tells us, ‘If you don’t do this or that, then I’m pulling the plug’ — that’s a threat. I’ve never done anything because I was afraid of a threat,” said Pablo Rodriguez, the Canadian heritage minister who introduced the Online News Act, in response to Meta’s decision.