By Ahmad Hathout
A coalition of independent television stations has submitted an application to the CRTC requesting the regulator compel Meta to come to the bargaining table after alleging the social media giant has been hosting news programming without paying.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said it had banned Canadian news on its platforms after the Online News Act, which requires technology platforms to pay to link that content, became law in 2023. Late last year, the CRTC said it acknowledged measures taken by the company to comply with the law after opening an inquiry into possible violations the year prior, but did not say if the company had been making news available on its platforms.
But the Local Independent Television Stations Group (LITS) alleges that, contrary to what Meta has said publicly, the company has continued to host Canadian news without paying, and the steps it’s claimed to have taken “have been insufficient to ensure that its platforms are not operating as ‘digital news intermediaries’ within the scope of the Act.”
In fact, in some instances, Meta has been making competing news available through direct links “while blocking LITS news links,” LITS claims in the application, made public Thursday. LITS says it has provided examples, but they are redacted from its public application.
“This Application will demonstrate that, contrary to its submissions to the Commission, Meta has been making LITS news available on a regular basis since the Online News Act came into force December 19, 2023 and therefore qualifies as an operator of at least one digital news intermediary under the Act,” the coalition said in its application.
LITS says it anticipates Meta will say the Canadian news on its platforms are incidental. To that, LITS says this is false, as it claims there are “hundreds, if not thousands of Facebook and Instagram users” making available LITS news “on a fairly regular basis.”
Even if the examples are incidental, though, LITS argues it doesn’t matter to the law: “Any incidence of ‘making available’ on Facebook and/or Instagram … can trigger bargaining under the Act.”
LITS says it believes Meta does a “clean-up” of Canadian news links only after the fact, making it subject to the law.
LITS is asking for Facebook and Instagram to be added as digital news intermediaries, thus formally bringing it under regulation; is requesting mediation in 90 days; and for Meta to pay retroactive compensation from the law’s enactment in December 2023.
“Recently, Meta has indicated it would consider paying Canadian news organizations for the use of their content to train large language models (LLMs), but only if those organizations publicly call for the repeal of the Online News Act,” a statement from LITS reads.
“It is deeply troubling that Meta appears willing to pay for Canadian journalism only if news organizations oppose Canadian law,” said Cal Millar, president of Channel Zero, said in the statement. “That puts newsrooms in an impossible position and risks politicizing independent journalism.”
Meta did not respond to a request for comment.
LITS is made up of Channel Zero, Pattison Media, CHEK, Newfoundland Broadcasting, RNC Media, Tele Inter-Rives, Miracle Channel, and Thunder Bay Electronics, covering local news in 12 small markets for 3.5 million Canadians.
The department of Canadian Heritage has said it is open to negotiating a deal with platforms looking to host Canadian news.
That’s what it did with Google, the other of the two digital advertising giants, which has already committed an inflation-adjusted $100 million annually as part of its obligation under the law.
