After its royalty agreements with Canadian media, Meta cut the funding that was granted to The Canadian Press in order to finance journalistic positions within the press agency. The digital giant once again refers to the Online News Act passed by Ottawa.
“Meta has informed us of its intention to terminate the agreement that supports the news exchanges,” Malcolm Kirk, president of The Canadian Press, wrote Thursday in a message to employees, indicating that the current agreements will be honored until their end.
The day before, it was the Canadian groups having concluded agreements with Facebook concerning remuneration in exchange for the use of journalistic content who learned the bad news. The National Independent Information Cooperative (CN2i), which brings together six regional daily newspapers in Quebec, has publicly confirmed the end of its agreement.
According to our information, similar announcements were made by the American giant’s other partners, including daily newspapers such as The dutyTHE Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail.
Meta refuses to comment publicly on the fate of these agreements.
On its website, The Canadian Press explains that its partnership with the Californian multinational aimed to fund eight journalist positions across its offices in the country.
“Other financial and operational implications need to be carefully considered and we’ll say more about that later,” Kirk told news agency staff.
These decisions by the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp come about a week after the passage of Bill C-18 aimed at forcing the Internet giants to enter into retribution agreements with the media whose content they publish. Mark Zuckerberg’s company immediately reacted by announcing that media content would be blocked for its 24 million Facebook and Instagram users in the country.
This should happen before the law comes into effect, in about six months.