I opened Instagram recently and began scrolling.
The first item I encountered was a Venezuelan man speaking about the horrors his family suffered under recently deposed President Nicolás Maduro. A few swipes later, I arrived at a viral video I had seen previously of the death of an American woman, shot by an ICE officer. Without warning, and just after an influencer shared her skincare routine, I was confronted with a short, violent video clip of a woman losing her life.
Social media is how almost 60 per cent of young people and about one-third of all Canadians encounter the news today. The Canadian Internet Regulatory Authority reports that 60 per cent of Canadians are Facebook users and nearly 40 per cent are Instagram users.
Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, chose to remove credible journalism from these platforms in response to the 2023 introduction of the federal Online News Act, which was designed to forced Big Tech companies to compensate news organizations for use of their content.
The Online News Act doesn’t solve the long-term problem for news
Reported news has since been replaced on a wide scale by short-form videos and influencer commentary that is optimized for engagement, not accuracy.
By removing professional journalism from these two major social media platforms, Meta has altered how Canadians encounter information, steering them toward unverified, ideological and often sensational content.
The federal government should repeal the act and bring credible journalism back to Meta’s platforms, along with the emergency information-sharing and civic engagement that have been lost under Meta’s news blockade.
Although this would hand a victory to Meta, it is in the public interest to repair our damaged information environment and restore credible journalism to these two social media platforms that play a large role in shaping how Canadians understand the world.
The purpose of the act was to rebalance market power and create a sustainable funding stream for Canadian newsrooms, which have long been losing advertising revenue to Big Tech platform. Google and Meta have benefited for years from news content for which they did not pay – undermining the economic foundation of serious journalism.
Mainstream journalism organizations fought for this compensation as one part of a modern sustainable media business model.
Google reached an agreement with the federal government outside the parameters of the act. However, Meta’s reaction to the legislation has negatively altered how Canadians encounter information on its two popular social media platforms. What remains is not a shared information environment, but an algorithmic one, built to monetize reaction.
The act was modeled after the Australian example, the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, although there was one key difference. Australia’s model was designation-based (its government decides which companies are covered), while Canada’s is criteria-based (statutory thresholds determine coverage).
While the Canadian government and Meta failed to secure an agreement, the Australian government initially succeeded, with almost the equivalent of $190 million flowing to media outlets across the country. Three years later, however, Meta declined to renew those deals.
The Australian government stepped back, then doubled down. In late 2025, it announced a new tech tax instead – mirroring countries such as France, the U.K., Italy and Spain. Australia’s new proposed News Bargaining Incentive law is designed to push the world’s biggest tech companies to make deals with Australian news publishers worth an estimated AU$600 million annually (the equivalent of $571 million).
Meanwhile, in Canada, Google secured a five-year exemption for its search engine from the Online News Act in exchange for a commitment to transfer $100 million annually to the Canadian Journalism Fund. This money began to flow to news organizations in March 2025.
With credible news blocked on Meta’s platforms, influencers such as Joe Rogan increasingly shape how information is consumed – filtering it through ideological lenses and operating without the constraints of editorial balance or journalistic ethics.
Their goal is not to inform citizens. Rather, it is to inflame users because that is what drives engagement, and because engagement drives their revenue. While “if it bleeds, it leads” has always been part of journalism, social media algorithms have turned panic into profit.
As Canadians are being pushed further apart by fragmented information, the credible journalistic institutions that could anchor a shared reality have lost key distribution channels.
The Online News Act and Meta’s reaction to it have made Canadians more vulnerable to extremism. In the past, disagreements over issues and events usually assumed a shared information landscape. Today, that does not exist. That gap in understanding makes vilification of our neighbours easier and more pervasive.
Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked about repealing the Online News Act during a press conference last summer in the context of the devastating wildfire in Kelowna, B.C., and the difficulty of getting necessary information to residents because of news being blocked on Facebook.
He said, “This government is a big believer in the value of … local news and the importance of ensuring that that is disseminated as widely and as quickly as possible. So, we will look for all avenues to do that.”
Social media, especially Facebook and Instagram, are where many Canadians encounter the world. Credible journalism must be there, too.
At a moment when democratic resilience depends on access to trusted information, Canada cannot afford a policy that keeps credible journalism out of reach. Journalism is a public good, and the federal government should pursue other funding models that support it without distorting how Canadians access the news.
Carney has proven willing to overturn policies of the previous Liberal government and has already indicated an openness to revisiting the Online News Act. There is no reason to wait. It should be repealed as soon as possible.
