1 yr. ago • 89%

Meta's news ban is preventing Canadians from sharing vital information about the wildfires ripping through western Canada

www.businessinsider.com Meta's news ban is preventing Canadians from sharing vital information about the wildfires ripping through western Canada

Canadians are calling on Meta to lift its news ban so they can share news about the wildfires in the Northwest Territories and British Columbia.

Meta's news ban is preventing Canadians from sharing vital information about the wildfires ripping through western Canada::Canadians are calling on Meta to lift its news ban so they can share news about the wildfires in the Northwest Territories and British Columbia.

58 comments

How about not relying on Facebook for such things?

127
- A lot of First Nations people check Facebook because their band will be advising them on evac orders and providing updates that literally nobody else in the world will be doing (not news, not BC, not Can Gov, not NGOs... well, potentially BC Fire Service).
  
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  There is the problem...
  
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  There's nothing stopping their band from communicating with them, the block is only on links to news sites.
  
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- It's very hard to find the resources. The government sites are not SEO optimized, the URLs change, sometimes there's better info on local news websites. People are trying to share these vital resources with one another on social networks that already exist, and are finding that they cannot. In a time of crisis, you can't quickly set up another network on a different platform. Many people don't even know about better platforms.
  
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  What are the good resources? Because I just searched "Canada wildfire info" and got the Canadian Wild land Fire Information System" seems like a good place to start? Stop using Facebook for this shit (or anything else)
  
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  government sites can still be linked to through facebook. that's not the issue.
  
  facebook isn't linking to news sites. if you want news from news sites, go to the news sites. the "vital resources" aren't on CTV
  
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  It’s very hard to find the resources.
  
  JFC
  
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  That's 100% intentional by the way. Surprise surprise the Canadian government/provincial governments have every incentive and desire to downplay and cover up the severity of the wildfires that were in part caused by their negligence and utter failure of an ecological policy. Just ask the people in Yellowknife who had the narrative changed from "there is absolutely nothing wrong, you're all perfectly safe, no need to leave or panic, seriously stay in your homes" to "just kidding you're actually a day away from burning to death."
  
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- Have you tried rubbing a lamp?
  
  Facebook has been abusing people's mental illnesses for decades. It will take more than a statement on lemmy to fix that.
  
  The fires are happening today.
  
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- That's a great sentiment for the more tech-inclined folk, but for the masses, smug tech superiority doesn't mean much. People are going to use what they use; it's better to embrace what they're using than to shout into a vaccuum that millions of people need to stop enjoying what they like, and start enjoying what you enjoy.
  
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  smug tech superiority
  
  I can't tell if this is satire or not... Are you seriously implying that going to any search engine (aka the url bar to most folks) and typing in 2-3 key words regarding what you want to know about is for "tech-inclined" folks? Please tell me you forgot the /s
  
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  Bruh just make people Download a app to warn about catastrophic events in general?
  
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As much as Meta shouldn't be relied on for news, Canada creating legislation which stops Meta showing news then crying when Meta doesn't show news is frankly laughable and I don't know how their government didn't see it coming

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- Lol Meta has some good PR. The government did not stop Meta from sharing news. They stopped them from profiting off someone else's work without paying for it. Meta was told they had to start paying and decided to stop showing it entirely.
  
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  The Government telling meta and Google they'd have to pay to link has led to this entirely predictable result, and the companies said they would block links since very early on in the process. Independent experts (e.g., Michael Geist) also said that C18 was a bad idea.
  
  It's ridiculous to complain about someone complying with laws that you (the government) drafted and passed.
  
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  They told Meta that they had to pay to so much as host links to news sites on their platforms.
  
  ie they had to pay to literally direct users to news sites, where news sites would make money off advertising to them, allowing the news sites to double dip. If anyone's got good PR, it's the news sites (would you believe it, the news sites have good connections with the press?)
  
  There were ways to stop Meta from scraping news sites, but they decided to effectively stop them from even sharing news. They could've stopped the bill at purely "reproducing" news, but no, they got greedy and decided to make them pay for the privilege to give news sites free advertising. Why on earth would Meta agree to that, and why is it surprising that they just turned around and said no?
  
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  I seriously do not understand where this idea of "profiting off someone else's work" even comes from. I am on Meta's side here 100%.
  
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  I didn't pay much attention when this was happening. Are there size requirements or something? How does lemmy.ca or sh.itjust.works avoid paying?
  
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  I hate meta and I actually went out of my way to get my family and friends off of their platforms, but in this case I don't think they're in the wrong. Even if we roll with the logic that they should be paying for these links, then what is wrong with them deciding to not profit off of the links now by not showing them? Isn't that the right thing to do?
  
  It seems to me the news agencies and the Canadian government just wants extra revenue, and when their plan didn't go as expected they're now just crying and bit**ing about facing consequences of their actions.
  
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- I came here to say something similar. Both sides are playing a game of chicken and the citizens/users are paying the price.
  
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- For their next trick, the Canadian government will raise gas taxes and impose new tolls on all major highways, and then complain when people ignore orders to evacuate burning cities.
  
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This is mainly the result of the Canadian government grasping for anything to blame Facebook for not playing their stupid games, but the fact that this argument is getting any traction at all suggests that the notion of personal responsibility is in an alarming state.

Apparently, if you're a grown adult who only gets their news from a single company that isn't even primarily a news company, even after knowing they've banned domestic news that could be relevant to your safety, it's that company's job to be a complete news source, not your job to look at actual news.

Amazingly, some people actually want to be treated like children and have their thinking and choosing done for them, and those people are a godsend to those who demand unreasonable amounts of control. "Poor Mr. Headuphisass is going to suffer the direct consequences of his actions if you don't do x, y, and z that happen to align with our interests, you monster!". Blegh.

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the government's argument in implementing the link tax was that facebook doesn't provide any value, they just take news for free and make a profit off it.

so facebook stopped linking to news. and now they're complaining because facebook isn't providing the valuable service that they used to. so does facebook provide value by linking to news, or not?

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- Some people are complaining, certainly not everyone.
  
  And no, it's not a valuable service. Just go to CTV or CBC news websites and get all the wildfire news you need. People do not need to get their news from Facebook.
  
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  i mean, i mostly agree. i don't get my news from facebook, and most people i know who use facebook say it's a generally more pleasant experience without news on the site.
  
  but when i say "now they're complaining" i don't just mean random people. the people that are complaining are Justin Trudeau and David Eby. If they want facebook to link to news sites, they shouldn't charge facebook money for that. most websites pay facebook money to link to them.
  
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  so facebook stopped linking to news. and now they’re complaining because facebook isn’t providing the valuable service that they used to. so does facebook provide value by linking to news, or not?
  
  Same thing happened in Australia with similar legislation... the problem is, local county fire authorities who don't receive sufficient funding utilise social media to provide regular updates.... Meta (facebook at the time) shut off access for the day, and people went batshit. It definitely exposed a real flaw in that sparsely located, small county fire authorities don't have a good way to communicate to the people during bushfires.
  
  The problem here is that they want to reach a wide audience... and the wide audience are more likely to be using something owned by Meta to seek information.
  
  I hope someone stands up to the Meta mafia. Governments listen the fuck up and make it so your people aren't reliant on foreign entities to obtain vital information.
  
  [EDIT] I'll also add that while the county fire authorities in Australia might have apps to communicate, these are run by the state governments, so the reach of the individual apps is pretty variable. People who live in bushfire prone areas will probably have an app and their radio going to listen out on alerts to leave, but visitors, new residents, people passing through etc are pretty unlikely to think to download the CFA app for the state.
  
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  Yeah this feels like people with terrible habits being forced to learn new ones
  
  If more people learn to get their info from reliable sources, that's a win imo
  
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- 'oh look, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions'
  
  I feel for people, but this is exactly what the government legislated. We can't demand they pay a tax if they want to do business and then get mad when they decide to not do that business here.
  
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- Almost like the Canadian government is a clownshow from start to finish. Speaking as a Canadian.
  
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How the fuck is meta the most used means of that information being given to those who need it? What the fuck man how did we let that happen. Imagine the places that haven’t had something to test their systems of communication. Damn.

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The kids are alright.

Can assure you that lots of news and evacuation coordination information is still being shared. The same groups that were able to evacuate 95% of the population of a territory in a few days were able to adapt to sharing news differently pretty easily.

21
If only there was some site where people could get news and information. Some sort of... News... Site? The radio? TV?

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- Radio is always better than Facebook, but seems people have upgraded their trust.
  
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This is the best summary I could come up with:

In June, Canadian lawmakers passed a bill that would require companies like Meta and Google to pay news outlets to share their content.

In response, Meta banned users in Canada from viewing or sharing news content on its sites beginning August 1.

"Meta's reckless choice to block news before the Act is in force is hurting access to vital information on Facebook and Instagram," Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge tweeted Friday.

Here, residents are posting copied-and-pasted versions of news articles and live reported updates to circumvent the ban and continue sharing vital information about the wildfires.

And in British Columbia, just southwest of the Northwest Territories, officials have declared a state of emergency as nearly 400 wildfires burn and thousands are evacuated from the city of Kelowna and the surrounding region, CBC News reports.

"People in Canada can continue to use our technologies to connect with their communities and access reputable information, including content from official government agencies, emergency services and non-governmental organizations."

The original article contains 375 words, the summary contains 163 words. Saved 57%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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Canadian government's news link tax is preventing Canadians from sharing vital information about the wildfires ripping through western Canada

Let's place blame where blame is due.

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- C-18 isn’t even in effect. This is literally just Meta trying to force the hand of the government. They did the same thing in Australia.
  
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  And? You believe Meta/Google should have waited to block links?
  
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Social networks are a utility. They need to be free, accessible, chronological (not algorithm led) feeds that are available to all people.

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Who knew that all it'd take was interest rates for tech companies to go full evil

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- In this case, it's the Canadian government that is evil. Imagine them telling lemmy sites that they had to pay for news? It's basically the same thing.
  
  It's a complete destruction of the free and open internet. Canada doesn't get to declare war on the internet and then cry because Meta responded exactly how they said they would respond.
  
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- Depending on tech companies to not be evil is always a losing strategy. Tax them harder and build a better alert system.
  
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