Post Tagged with: "meta"

Facebook app by Eduardo Woo https://flic.kr/p/pfd7yn (CC BY-SA 2.0)

CRTC Says No Regulatory Action Planned Against Meta For Blocking News Links

In the months leading up to the effective date of the Online News Act, then-Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge urged the CRTC to investigate Meta’s decision to block news links on its Facebook and Instagram platforms as its method of compliance. Pointing to reports of people screenshotting news articles and the use of other workarounds the blocking of news links that came in response to the Online News Act (Bill C-18), St-Onge said “I cant wait to see what the CRTC will do when the law is fully enforced on Dec. 19.” As the law took effect and the issue grew, the CRTC did indeed send Meta a letter in October 2024 asking for information on how the company was complying with the legislation. I wrote about this request soon afterward, providing a detailed analysis of the law that sought to explain why some news sites might fall outside the scope of the legislation along with the legal grey area of screenshots.

This week, the CRTC finally responded to Meta on the issue.

December 4, 2025 — 1 comment — News

Higher Education in London by Sam Saunders https://flic.kr/p/2nVzDou CC BY-SA 2.0

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 241: Scott Benzie on How Government Policy Has Eroded Big Tech Support for Canadian Culture

TikTok’s decision to pull support for multiple Canadian cultural organizations and events in light of the federal government’s decision to ban the company from operating in the country has sparked growing concern. Putting the spotlight on TikTok makes sense, but it risks missing the bigger picture which involves a steady stream of funding cancellations in response to Canadian digital cultural policy. Netflix, Meta, Spotify, Disney and others have all had their own announcements with millions lost due largely to Canadian policy.

Has Canada killed the proverbial goose that laid the golden egg on cultural support? Scott Benzie is the executive director of Digital First Canada and CEO of the Buffer Festival. He’s seen the impact first hand and he returns to the Law Bytes podcast to discuss what has been happening, identify why, and sort through the impact.

July 21, 2025 — 3 comments — Podcasts

President Trump Meets with Mark Zuckerberg by Official White House Photo by Joiyce N. Boghosian https://flic.kr/p/2hida5y PDM 1.0

New Era and New Risks: Meta’s Content Moderation Reforms and Freedom of Expression Online

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg yesterday announced significant new changes to the company’s content moderation policies. The five-minute video is worth watching in its entirety, as it demonstrates the shifting political sands that seemingly pressured even the world’s largest social media company to pay heed. Zuckerberg said the company’s reliance on third-party fact checkers had resulted in too much censorship and vowed to return to an emphasis on freedom of expression. That means the fact checkers are gone, replaced by the Twitter (X) model of community notes. Moreover, the company is moving its content moderation team from California to Texas (a nod to claims the California-based teams were biased), increasing the amount of political content in user feeds, and pledging to work with the Trump administration to combat content regulation elsewhere, including in Europe and South America.

January 8, 2025 — 4 comments — News

Mark Zuckerberg F8 2019 Keynote by Anthony Quintano https://flic.kr/p/2fMDgqa CC BY 2.0

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 217: David Fraser on the Privacy Implications of the Federal Court of Appeal’s Facebook Ruling

It has been many years since the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal captured headlines. The services at the heart of the case no longer exist, but the legal case in Canada continues to march on. Last month, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned a lower court decision that had largely sided with Facebook. In its place, it released a new decision that includes and analysis of reasonableness under the Canadian privacy law and engages with the notion of a potential trust but verify standard in some cases when data is transferred to third parties.

The case may not be over yet, but the latest decision has big implications for privacy in Canada. David Fraser, one of Canada’s leading privacy practitioners with McInnes Cooper and the creator a popular Youtube channel on privacy law, joins the Law Bytes podcast to provide the background on the case, assess the key findings, and consider what may come next.

October 28, 2024 — 4 comments — Podcasts

Is Meta Offside the Online News Act? The CRTC Wants to Know.

Meta has blocked news links on its Facebook and Instagram platforms for more than a year in response to the Online News Act, resulting in significant lost traffic to many Canadian news sites. The company’s position has been pretty clear from the start: the law applies to digital news intermediaries that make “news content produced by news outlets available to persons in Canada.” By blocking news links, the company believes that it falls outside the definition and therefore is not required to register with the CRTC and enter into negotiations for payments to Canadian news outlets. After Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge repeatedly urged the CRTC to examine the issue, this week the Commission sent a letter to Meta giving it seven days to comment on “what measures Meta is taking to comply with the Act, and whether news is being made available on Meta’s platforms.”

October 9, 2024 — 18 comments — News