Don’t lose access to your local news!
The federal government has recently passed bill C-18, known as the Online News Act, into law. The act requires news publishers to be compensated for the sharing and reposting of their content on social media sites by the operators of those sites. To avoid paying, some social media companies are choosing to simply block access to all Canadian news content for Canadian users.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook & Instagram, has decided to block access to Canadian news publishers on those two platforms, beginning gradually over the next few weeks.
Meta’s ban is wide-ranging and includes newspapers, TV stations, online-only news outlets, and local radio stations. Bayshore Broadcasting’s radio stations all run local news on the air and online, and while some of our stations, primarily post non-news content to their social media pages, all of our stations appear to be included in this ban. You will therefore not be able to view pages of any of our brands on Facebook or Instagram, nor or any of their content.
Other online platforms may also take action. Google is still considering its response, but may take similar action to Meta. Twitter (now known as X) has not yet made a clear statement on the issue, but would also be under the purview of the act. It remains to be seen how other sites will approach this legislation, which gives until the end of 2023 for companies to come into compliance.
All of Bayshore’s articles are always posted on our individual radio station websites for each of the communities we serve, and regionally-relevant stories can also be found on this website, bayshorebroadcasting.ca. You will still be able to find your local news, weather, events, contests, and more on all of our websites!
While we hope that the government and social media companies are able to reach an understanding that allows for the unimpeded sharing of local news content on these platforms, such an agreement seems to be a far way off, and it appears that we will have to live with this situation for at least a while.
If you have any further questions about the situation, please feel free to contact us.
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