The Canadian Senate approved a bill on Thursday that will force platforms like Facebook and Google to pay media outlets for including their content on their services.
After the approval in the Senate, the law has passed the parliamentary procedure and will enter into force when it receives the royal sanction and is promulgated.
Moments after the approval in the Senate, Facebook announced that it will immediately stop sharing information with its users in Canada.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said in a statement that media content “will not be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada.”
Google has also said it will block news access to its users in Canada in response to the bill.
Meta and Google have refused to pay the media companies, claiming that distributing links to their news is “beneficial” for newspapers and the media.
emergency meeting
Experts have warned that the disappearance of these media information platforms will multiply the effect of disinformation on Facebook and Google.
According to The Globe and Mail newspaper, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodríguez was scheduled to hold an emergency meeting with Google on Thursday to try to reach an agreement.
On June 2, Meta implemented the temporary blocking of access to news in Canada for part of its users in retaliation for the bill.
Then, the Canadian government accused the American technology giant of trying to blackmail the country.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Facebook’s decision a “grave mistake,” adding that the company was being “irresponsible.”
For his part, Rodríguez declared that the temporary blocking of news from Meta was “an unacceptable threat.”
“When a big tech company, regardless of its size, the amount of money and the powerful lawyers it has, comes and tells us that if we don’t do this or that it’s going to shut down, that’s a threat that’s unacceptable,” said the Last June 2 on Twitter, Minister Rodríguez.
