The last week has seen Meta, the rebranded company which offers Facebook begin its shutdown of access to Canadian News sources, as part of their response to Federal Legislation that seeks to generate some Revenue for Canadian news organizations.
As the Meta Fatwa on Canadian news got underway, the four main Northwest media sources were the first to feel the wrath of Mark Zuckerberg's team, with advisories popping up since BC Day to advise that the Canadian news links were no longer available.
The Meta strategy towards the issue is a push back on the Federal legislation and with it would seem to eliminate any need for them to forward whatever financial compensation the legislation would compel.
But as for an impact on readers, listeners or viewers of Canadian media, the move will mostly be an inconvenience and something that reduces the ability to share links to local content through their platform.
Hover, most of those in the community with an interest in local news, likely already know how to access the four services listed above, so the real reduction for the most part may come from browsing of Facebook itself.
Still to come is what would be significantly larger issue, with Google threatening to do the same by banning links to Canadian news sources and news of Canadian interest; something which would be of larger concern beyond just social media activities, but again, not an insurmountable obstacle, with other browsing software available for Canadians to access if required.
As for the local Northwest news services, as long as they offer up local content that residents have an interest in, their stories and articles likely will somehow make it to the audience it was destined for.
A few avenues towards sharing of those stories from readers, listeners and viewers could come from the rival social media sites out there.
X the former twitter, while at times steeped in its own internal issues and the whims of owner Elon Musk, still has not indicated any plans to reduce access to news content, so that's one avenue, while other sources, while less popular can also be found.
The North Coast Review never got around to creating a Facebook home, though our work can be found on the social media portal now known as X, created back in the days when a cute little blue bird would share notes on our themes of interest.
For those that may not have the website addresses to each of our local news sources available, a check of our Media archive page provides you with one stop linkage to the four main local options.
For those links and our past notes on media in the region, check out our archive page here.
Cross posted from the North Coast Review.
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