According to statistics from independent tracking businesses, Meta’s recent move to ban news links in Canada had minimal influence on Canadians’ Facebook usage. Despite the Canadian government’s criticism, daily active Facebook users and time spent on the app in Canada have remained mostly unchanged.
According to data given by Similarweb, a digital analytics company that tracks website and app traffic, Facebook usage in Canada has not changed significantly since Meta implemented the news restriction at the beginning of August. Another analytics startup, Data.ai, reported no significant change in platform utilization in August.
Meta’s attitude is consistent with its claim that news content has no value for the corporation. The conflict stems from a new Canadian regulation, the Online News Act, which requires internet behemoths like Meta and Google to establish contractual deals for content usage with Canadian news publishers.
According to Meta, news stories account up less than 3% of the information on its Facebook feeds and have no major economic value for the company.
While Meta’s efforts to minimize the prevalence of news and civic material on its platforms continue, the shift in focus to lighter issues such as fashion, entertainment, and sports has resulted in a significant decline in news consumption via social media.
According to Similarweb data, even before the news block in Canada, Facebook referrals to popular news sites in the country had decreased by around 35% year over year in July and by approximately 74% since 2020.
However, Meta’s transparency reports show that news is still one of the most popular types of material on Facebook in the United States, where it exposes the most popular content. According to its most recent report, 13 of the top 20 domains seen on Facebook in the first quarter were news websites, with 18 of the top 20 individual links connecting to news stories.
Meta’s Instagram, which does not allow links within individual user postings, has a smaller impact in the news ecosystem.
Meta stopped sharing news on its platforms in Canada at the beginning of August, and Google has stated that it will restrict news from search results in Canada once the law goes into force.
As negotiations over the rules continue behind the scenes, Canadian officials have accused Meta of brinkmanship. Specific rules describing the law’s application are likely to be revealed in late December, after which platforms must negotiate deals with publishers.
Pascale St-Onge, Canada’s new Heritage Minister, has met with both Facebook and Google. The Canadian agency in charge of enforcing the online news law intends to build a framework for negotiations between news organizations and internet behemoths in the coming months, with mandated bargaining to begin in early 2025.
