As Meta news block takes its toll, local media not unified on a path forward

Though Meta's block of news availability on the social media giant's platforms is already taking its toll on web traffic to news sites, local media outlets aren't united on a path forward.

Just over two weeks ago, Meta — which owns Facebook and Instagram — began ending the availability of news on those sites in Canada in response to the passage of Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which takes effect by the end of this year.

Paul MacNeill of Island Press Limited, which publishes several weekly community papers in Prince Edward Island, and Jeff Elgie, whose company Village Media publishes around 21 community news websites in Ontario, both spoke on CBC's The House, which aired Saturday.

MacNeill, publisher of Island Press, told guest host Tom Parry that his company's web traffic has been down by around a quarter since the start of the Meta block.

Elgie said he expects Village Media traffic to decline by around 15 per cent.

MacNeill, whose papers still have a robust print subscriber base, said the main drawback of decreased traffic was the chance to amplify his publications' work beyond their rural P.E.I. base.

Elgie said the bill would severely hamper any chance of future growth.

"What this bill has done is we've put a halt on any new market expansions and hiring more journalists in those markets," Elgie said.

Elgie and MacNeill, though both operating in the local news industry, expressed widely different positions on C-18, which is meant to force Meta and Google to enter into agreements to compensate news agencies for content that appears on their platforms.

"I hate it," Elgie said.

The government says C-18 is about ensuring tech companies pay their "fair share" to media organizations. Meta has countered that the only reasonable way to comply with the bill is to end news access in Canada.

CBC has joined two other groups in asking the Competition Bureau to investigate Meta's news blocking.

"I don't object to the notion that Google and Facebook should support journalism," Elgie said. "But the premise of C-18, what we said, which is basically, 'They steal our content, they're immoral, they don't do anything for the publishing industry,' is all false."

Elgie's argument is that the transfer of value between social media sites and news outlets actually flows the opposite way: media sites benefit from free traffic and amplification when their content is posted on tech platforms.