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.
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.
If only there was some site where people could get news and information. Some sort of… News… Site? The radio? TV?
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?
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.
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.
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 to do that. most websites pay facebook money to link to them.
For just about anything you can always find “people” that complain about it: I mean, Flat-Earthers complain of their views getting “unfair treatment”.
That doesn’t at all mean it’s bad or even that such a view is anywhere representative of what even a significant minority of people thinks.
Somebody complaining about something is only a valid threshold for “newsworthy” for a “news” media which is clickbait prone or little more than the mouthpiece of a specific political side.
(Not Canadian, don’t really have a side in there, just pointing out what I see as a general rule).
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.
Social networks are a utility. They need to be free, accessible, chronological (not algorithm led) feeds that are available to all people.
