Citizens in Canada are getting new alerts across their Instagram app that is denying them access to view posts related to news content.
The report comes after a recently published Canadian legislation came into effect that barred all citizens from viewing news on the platform. Similarly, publishers of such news-related posts were also provided with an alert that informed them of the change.
It boldly says in black how users of the app in Canada cannot view posts related to news publications after the new law came into effect recently.
We saw the development first noted by social media enthusiast and expert Alessandra Paluzzi who shared it through a post on his Twitter status.
Meta says that it is really stepping up its game in terms of offering opposition to the new Canadian bill. This required Facebook’s parent firm to send out payments to Canadian media agencies for linking their articles or repurposing across their apps.
Hence, the tech giant would be restricting news on both its Facebook and Instagram platforms and that seems to have already started today.
The company had previously issued a warning to the country that if the bill turned into a law, it would be left with no choice but to restrict access to news posts by Canadian users and whether they like it or not, it’s clearly happening as we speak.
Meta says that this is right now a trial or test being carried out to see the response and it’s not yet sure if it would like to move ahead with the decision in its entirety or not. But by the looks of it, it’s certainly not happy with the news of making payments to news outlets as it feels they attain way more funds than Meta would ever get for such content.
This testing period will reportedly last for the next few weeks and it’s only being carried out on a fraction of the Canadian population and not the entire country.
Users would not be getting any links on their respective Instagram and Facebook newsfeeds, which the company added for any news-related posts. But this won’t stop news outlets from doing what they do best and that is bombarding the app with more links. The only difference now is that some Canadian users just cannot view them.
Read next: 15 Countries Break Trust by Imposing Internet Restrictions Despite Pledges for Freedom
The report comes after a recently published Canadian legislation came into effect that barred all citizens from viewing news on the platform. Similarly, publishers of such news-related posts were also provided with an alert that informed them of the change.
It boldly says in black how users of the app in Canada cannot view posts related to news publications after the new law came into effect recently.
We saw the development first noted by social media enthusiast and expert Alessandra Paluzzi who shared it through a post on his Twitter status.
Meta says that it is really stepping up its game in terms of offering opposition to the new Canadian bill. This required Facebook’s parent firm to send out payments to Canadian media agencies for linking their articles or repurposing across their apps.
Hence, the tech giant would be restricting news on both its Facebook and Instagram platforms and that seems to have already started today.
The company had previously issued a warning to the country that if the bill turned into a law, it would be left with no choice but to restrict access to news posts by Canadian users and whether they like it or not, it’s clearly happening as we speak.
Meta says that this is right now a trial or test being carried out to see the response and it’s not yet sure if it would like to move ahead with the decision in its entirety or not. But by the looks of it, it’s certainly not happy with the news of making payments to news outlets as it feels they attain way more funds than Meta would ever get for such content.
This testing period will reportedly last for the next few weeks and it’s only being carried out on a fraction of the Canadian population and not the entire country.
Users would not be getting any links on their respective Instagram and Facebook newsfeeds, which the company added for any news-related posts. But this won’t stop news outlets from doing what they do best and that is bombarding the app with more links. The only difference now is that some Canadian users just cannot view them.
Read next: 15 Countries Break Trust by Imposing Internet Restrictions Despite Pledges for Freedom
