Meta is stepping up the pressure on Ottawa and will end all its pre-existing agreements with news organizations in Canada, the QMI Agency has learned.
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The agreements that had been concluded with The Canadian Press, The dutyInformation Co-ops, the Toronto Star And The Globe & Mail will end in the near future.
Employees of the Coops de l’information were the first to learn of the death of their partnership with Meta on Wednesday, followed by those of The Canadian Press on Thursday.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed that the multinational would do the same for the agreements concluded with The dutyTHE Toronto Star And The Globe & Mail.
Listen to the interview of the host of the podcast “Mon Carnet”, by Bruno Guglielminetti:
Malcolm Kirk, president of The Canadian Press, wrote a memo to employees on Thursday in which he assured that the current cohort of Meta scholars would be the last.
“We must carefully analyze the other financial and operational implications of the abrupt end of this program. We will keep you posted,” he said.
Contacted by the QMI Agency, a Meta spokesperson said the company would not comment at this time.
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In protest against the Online News Act, which forces Google and Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) to share a share of revenue obtained from journalistic content, the two companies announced that they would block links to news from Canadian media.
Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s press secretary, Laura Scaffidi, recalled that “as long as the regulatory process has not been completed, the platforms have no obligations”.
“The success of these platforms depends on the users. Facebook prefers to spend money modifying their platform to block access to news instead of paying their fair share. It shows how irresponsible and out of touch they are, while making billions of dollars from Canadian users. Again, Facebook knows the minister’s door is open. They have his number,” she said in an email.