OTTAWA: Facebook and Instagram users in Canada will be blocked from viewing Canadian news, parent-company Meta said on Thursday, after Ottawa passed a bill requiring digital giants to pay for such content.

Google, another critic of the Online News Act, has previously said it is considering a similar move.

The two Silicon Valley giants have pushed back against the bill, which aims to support a struggling Canadian news sector that has seen hundreds of publications closed in the last decade.

“Exciting news! (No pun intended),” Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez tweeted after the bill passed a final hurdle in the Senate on its way to becoming law.

He said Meta’s decision to block news content was regrettable, but vowed to “stand up for Canadians against tech giants.”

His office said officials met with Facebook and Google this week and looked forward to further discussions about the new law.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month slammed Meta for a trial run of blocking Canadian news content for some users, saying the company was being “deeply irresponsible and out of touch” for refusing to pay journalists for their work.

Opposition to the bill, he said, was “flawed (and) dangerous to our democracy, to our economy.” Google in February had also temporarily limited access to news for Canadian users of its popular search engine.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2023