Google has announced they will ban news in Canada in response to the Trudeau Liberals’ Bill C-18.
This comes just days after Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – announced they would block Canadians’ access to news on their sites.
Last week, the Trudeau government passed the Online News Act, known as Bill C-18, which dictated that tech giants would have to pay news outlets for clicks that direct people to their platforms.
Google released a statement on Thursday informing Canadians that Canadian news outlets will no longer show up in search results and Google News will cease to operate in the country.
“We have now informed the Government that when the law takes effect, we unfortunately will have to remove links to Canadian news from our Search, News and Discover products in Canada,” the post stated.
Google added, “C-18 will also make it untenable for us to continue offering our Google News Showcase product in Canada.”
Google’s comments echo what Meta’s head of public policy in Canada, Rachel Curran, said on Tuesday.
“We are proceeding towards ending the availability of news permanently in Canada,” she said on Power & Politics.
Canadians will still be able to see information from governmental and non-governmental organizations disseminated on Facebook, but not media outlets.
Curran said Meta had 18 private deals to compensate Canadian media outlets in place, but the passage of the bill jeopardizes those deals.
She also said Meta advised the Liberal government over the course of several months that if the online news bill were to pass, Meta would block Canadian access to news.
Liberal Heritage Minister and censorship czar Pablo Rodriguez is in full panic mode.
Earlier this week, Rodriguez hinted that he will be compensating mainstream media newsrooms that are affected by the tech companies’ black-out response to his bill.
Rodriguez didn’t say precisely what kinds of tax credits, funding programs, or other goodies the mainstream media may receive, but he did suggest that every option is on the table.
“We have to make sure that newsrooms are open, that [journalists] are able to do their job and [they] have the resources necessary,” Rodriguez said.
