Well, Meta has thown a paddy and called the Canadian government's bluff, and will be removing news coverage for Canadian users of its Facebook and Instagram platforms. And I for one am secretly gleeful about that.
Meta balked at Canada's insistence that it pay Canadian news organizations for the news items it puts out on its platforms. Seems entirely reasonable really, although Meta is outraged - outraged, I tell you! - by the suggestion, claiming that "it is based on the incorrect premise that Meta benefits unfairly from news content shared on our platforms ... news outlets volutarily share content on Facebook and Instagram".
So, Facebook and Instagram users (of which I am not one, I might point out) will just have to look for their news on news sites - shock horror! They will not "benefit" from Facebook's restrictive algorithms, which merely serve to amplify the internet echo chambers in which we all operate.
Some, of course, will choose to do their own amplifying by subscribing to The Sun or, worse, some American pseudo-news. But at least that will be their conscious choice, rather than just sucking up the Facebook-generated pablum/coolaid.
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