Canada will suspend the publication of ads on Instagram – 7/5/2023 – Market

The Canadian government will stop spending around C$10 million ($7.5 million) a year on Facebook and Instagram ads, amid a disputed dispute by Meta’s platforms over the new law. for paying online news outlets, Canada’s Minister of Heritage, Pablo Rodríguez, announced this Wednesday (5).

The government still sees a way to resolve the dispute that led Meta and Alphabet Inc’s Google to announce they would shut down access to news on their platforms in Canada, Rodríguez told reporters in Ottawa.

Google and Meta announced their measures after the C-18 bill, or “Online News Act”, passed last month.

The government is in the process of finalizing rules that would require platforms to share some advertising revenue before the law is implemented by the end of this year.

“We cannot continue to pay Meta advertising dollars while they refuse to pay their fair share to Canadian news organizations,” Rodríguez said.

The legislation follows calls from Canada’s media industry for tighter regulation of internet giants to allow news companies to recoup financial losses suffered in the years when Facebook and Google gained a bigger share. of the online advertising market.

“We believe we have a way forward and we are willing to continue the dialogue with the platforms,” ​​said Rodríguez, who introduced the legislation last year.

Meta had no immediate comment. Previously, the company has stated that news has no economic value to the company and that news organizations benefit from sharing their stories on Facebook.

Separately, Quebecor, a telecom company that also owns media outlets, and Cogeco, which operates radio stations in Quebec, also announced on Wednesday that they would pull their ads from Meta’s social networks.

Quebecor did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how much it spends on ads on Facebook and Instagram.