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Meta’s news ban in Canada has led to a media disaster. What does that mean for US efforts to wrangle big tech platforms?
It’s been a year since Meta yanked Canadian news from its platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and Threads – in response to a government bill that would see tech giants pay news outlets for linking to their online content. The Online News Act, which is similar to legislation passed in Australia, led to threats from both Meta and Google that they would pull news content originating in Canada. Google eventually struck a deal with media outlets; Meta did not, and it shows no sign of changing course a year later.
The full effects of Meta’s news ban are just coming to light. A report released this month by the Media Ecosystem Observatory finds that nearly half of online news media engagement has dropped in the last year, including 85% on Facebook and Instagram, a loss that “has not been compensated by increases on other social media platforms.”
It also finds that nearly a third of local news outlets that were active on social media are now dormant. What’s more, a whopping 75% of the public is unaware of the ban that has led to Canadians consuming less news – and more disinformation – than ever before.
“Canadians continue to learn about politics and current events through Facebook and Instagram,” the report summarizes, “but through a more biased and less factual lens than before, and many Canadians do not even realize the shift has occurred. They do not appear to be seeking news elsewhere.”
It’s a worst-of-all-worlds scenario in Canada as a struggling media industry and a growing online disinformation problem collide, depriving outlets of much-needed views and shares, and readers of access to reliable, high-quality journalism. In an ironic twist, a law meant to preserve news media by filling the coffers of news outlets, allowing them to keep staff and grow coverage, is contributing to its demise.
Will the Liberals stand up for their law?
The Liberal government isn’t backing down in the face of this new data, though. Ottawa is now saying Meta may still indeed be regulated by way of the Online News Act since some news is still sneaking through the block, which looks like a technicality but speaks to the government’s intention to double down on the law.
Moreover, there’s big money at stake. Google has signed a CA$100 million dollar deal to fund journalism. That money will be managed by small independent outlets focused on digital journalism. It’s too early to say what effect the money will have on news media in Canada, since the program is just starting to roll out, and there’s plenty still to be determined. But you know what they say – tens of millions here, tens of millions there, it eventually starts to add up to real money.
Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s global macro-geopolitics practice, says “The de-platforming of Canadian news content is probably not what the government expected when they launched their Online News Act, and it’s having the perverse effect that now Canadians are less exposed to quality, reliable journalism and reporting on social media platforms.”
But he doesn’t expect Canada will back down “unless there’s a change in government.”
By the next federal election in 2025, there may be one as the Conservatives are up in the polls. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has criticized the legislation and suggested it was “like 1984,” claiming it’s censorship and expressing concern that the government was trying to ban Canadians from seeing the news. That tone suggests he may be inclined to rescind the law, or at least change it.
US efforts to extract media payments from platforms are moving … slowly
Canada isn’t the only country working on securing payments from the tech sector to offset the harmful effect their advertising market dominance has on news media. But the Canadian experience may serve as a warning, or at least a lesson, for US lawmakers.
A bill before Congress, the Journalism Competition Act of 2023, would set a process for collective negotiation between news media and online platforms for payments to the former in exchange for access to their content. Introduced in 2021, in the last Congress, by Sen. Amy Klobuchar and again in 2023 for the current one, the bill is going nowhere fast. It has seen no movement since it was placed on the Senate’s legislative calendar in July 2023.
The state of California is considering a similar bill. Meta has threatened to block news there if the bill, which enjoys bipartisan support, passes. The California Journalism Preservation Act passed the state assembly 46-6 and is now in the Senate, where it’s working its way through committee in the face of opposition from tech giants who claim the bill won’t support local journalism, but rather act as a giveaway to hedge funds and big media companies.
A 2023 white paper found that Google and Meta made billions from linking to news – $21 billion and $4 billion respectively – and “owed” $10-12 billion and $1.9 billion annually to publishers as payment for the profit they make from news media content.
Scott Bade, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s geo-technology unit, expects the US won’t rush to emulate Canada’s approach. He notes that a divided Congress and looming election means lawmakers won’t be keen to make headway on a controversial tech regulation bill. The latest data from Canada won’t exactly spur action, either.
When it comes to California, where Democrats have control of the state legislature, the chances of a bill passing may be higher, he notes, but they still face intense lobbying from the tech industry, and it’s not a given that Gov. Gavin Newsom would even sign it.
A matter of life and death
The consequences of news bans are real. They suppress the capacity of media organizations to get factual, reported information to the public – and thus put media, particularly local outlets, at further risk of folding. They also facilitate the flow of unreliable information. The consequences of this dynamic can be quite literally a matter of life and death.
The recent far-right, anti-immigrant riots in the United Kingdom were violent and included fires being lit at hotels in which asylum-seekers were staying. There have been hundreds of arrests so far after online misinformation and disinformation spread, claiming that a Muslim immigrant was responsible for the stabbing deaths of three youths in Southport – in fact, the suspect is a non-Muslim who was born in Cardiff.
As Time reports, the riots were brutal as “[f]ar-right groups were seen looting, attacking police and locals, and performing Nazi salutes in the street. As the mobs chanted ‘send them home’ and ‘Islam out,’ they also destroyed mosques, libraries, and graffitied racial slurs on homes.”
Ahead of the upcoming US presidential election and 2025 Canadian federal election, there is worry that online disinformation will pose a serious, even “unprecedented” threat, which could lead to harassment, intimidation, and even violence.
The next war
Governments are trying to extract funds from well-heeled tech platforms and struggling to keep media outlets afloat while fighting to displace misinformation and disinformation with more reliable sources of news. But track records are spotty, and the future is uncertain.
In some ways, the media funding battle is the “last war,” says Bade, and a new struggle is increasingly emerging over artificial intelligence and the “bigger threat” of content stripping.
“If media companies are going to have collective negotiation with tech companies,” Bade says, “it probably should be over that.”
Two hands touching each other in front of a pink background.
Hard Numbers: Startups are up, Google gas, Brazil dings Meta, Slow and steady
27.1 billion: From April to June, investors poured $27.1 billion into US-based artificial intelligence startups, according to PitchBook. That’s nearly half of the $56 billion that all American startups raised during that time. Startup investment is up 57% year over year — something for which the AI industry can claim lots of credit.
48: Google’s greenhouse gas emissions are up a whopping 48% since 2019, thanks in no small part to its investments in AI. In the tech giant’s annual environmental report, it chalked up the increase to “increased data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions.” It previously set a goal to reach net-zero emissions by 2030 and now says that’s “extremely ambitious” given the state of the industry. Many AI firms are struggling to meet voluntary emissions goals due to the massive energy demands of training and running models.
9,000: The Brazilian government on Tuesday ordered Meta to stop training its AI models on citizens’ data. The penalty? A fine of 50,000 Reals (about $9,000). The government gave Meta five days to amend its privacy policy and data practices, citing the “fundamental rights” of Brazilians.
75: Bipartisan consensus is hard to come by these days. But in a recent survey of US voters, conducted by the AI Policy Institute, 75% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans said it’s preferable that AI development is slow and steady as opposed to the US racing ahead to gain a strategic advantage over China and other foreign adversaries.
AI is changing the fine print on your favorite services
More recently, Adobe faced public outrage when devoted users read into ambiguities in its new privacy policy. The company changed its terms of use earlier this month, noting that it “may access [user] content through both automated and manual methods,” including machine learning. Adobe wrote a blog post clarifying that it’s not peering into NDA-protected Photoshop projects, but rather describing the way it uses AI to monitor its ecosystem for illegal content such as child sexual abuse material.
There’s an old truism in tech, “If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.” Well, Adobe’s products aren’t cheap, so, let’s rework this. How about: “If you’re using it, you’ve become AI training data.” Oh, and if you’re concerned about privacy, you should always read the fine print.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump returns to the courtroom after a short break during his hush money trial at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City, U.S., 20 May 2024.
Hard Numbers: Cohen’s klepto testo, Flights resume out of Port-au-Prince, Abinader wins in DR, Opening airport in New Caledonia
30,000: On Monday during his cross examination in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, the former president’s ex-fixer Michael Cohen admitted he stole around $30,000 from the Trump Organization. Trump’s lawyers attempted to portray Cohen, an ex-convict and known liar, as someone with an ax to grind whose testimony cannot be trusted.
3: Haiti’s primary airport in Port-au-Prince opened on Monday for the first time in roughly three months after being closed due to deadly gang violence. Only one commercial flight left on Monday, landing in Miami. Most of the capital remains under the control of gangs.
59: Dominican voters easily returned President Luis Abinader to a second term in office with 59% of the vote on Sunday, more than double the runner-up’s vote share. Voters have the crisis in neighboring Haiti top of mind, and they back Abinader’s hardline policies of deportation and a border wall.
40: French security forces have been struggling to clear the 40-mile-long stretch of highway between New Caledonia’s international airport and its capital Noumea amid violent unrest that broke out last week. Tourists and expats have been trapped on the South Pacific Island since the airport closed last Tuesday, but Paris hopes to have the situation in hand shortly.
The Meta logo is seen in front of a stock graph in this illustration.
Wall Street wants more from Meta
Meta is one of the biggest players in generative AI — but, while Wall Street typically loves AI chatter from companies, an episode this week showed that there are limits to this unbridled enthusiasm.
Meta posted impressive first-quarter earnings last week, but the company’s stock plunged 15% on news that it would spend $35-40 billion this year on AI-related investments alone. (That’s up from a previous estimate of $30-37 billion.) The costs were largely for AI infrastructure: data centers, graphics chips, and research and development.
Just mentioning AI has tended to goose valuations on Wall Street. Is this the first indication that’s changing, or is it Meta-specific? The company still makes most of its money from advertising on its social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, and it’s made its Llama line of generative AI models (mostly) open-source, meaning anyone can access and modify the model online for free. Open-source models aren’t impossible to monetize, but for now, it seems Meta’s AI investments are meant to keep more users on its platforms. Meta flooded its apps with AI features last week, adding a chatbot experience in the Instagram search bars, the Facebook news feed, and Messenger conversations.
Meta’s AI spending has made it an unavoidable player in the space. It’s adopting a very different strategy than any other AI company — and one that investors may not value as highly.
Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind Technologies and developer of AlphaGO, attends the AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes, Britain, November 2, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Google’s spending spree, Going corporate, Let’s see a movie, Court-ordered AI ban, Energy demands
100 billion: AI is a priority for many of Silicon Valley’s top companies — and it’s a costly one. Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis said that the tech giant plans to spend more than $100 billion developing artificial intelligence. That’s the same amount that rival Microsoft is expected to spend in building an AI-powered supercomputer, nicknamed Stargate.
72.5: The free market is dominating the AI game: Of the foundation models released between 2019 and 2023, 72.5% of them originated from private industry, according to a new Staford report. 108 models were released by companies, as opposed to 28 from academia, nine from an industry-academia collaboration, and four from government. None at all were released through a collaboration between government and industry.
5: The A24 film Civil War has garnered considerable controversy for its content, but its promotion is under scrutiny as well. Five posters for the film were created using artificial intelligence and depict scenes that never occur in the narrative. That’s kicked off a debate about the ethics of using AI in film marketing as well as questions of whether this is false advertising for the movie itself.
1,000: A sex offender in the UK who was found to have created 1,000 indecent images of children was banned from using any “AI creating tools” for five years by a British court. It’s not clear if he was actually using AI to create the illegal images in question, or if the order is peremptory, but it could serve as a model for future punishment in UK cases in the future. Meanwhile, on April 23, a group of AI companies including Google, Meta, and OpenAI, pledged to better prevent their tools from creating sexualized images of children and other exploitative material.
4.5: Salesforce is calling on AI companies to disclose the energy efficiency and carbon footprint of their models, and asking legislators to pass new laws aimed at demanding transparency and reducing the total energy consumption of AI. Salesforce’s best estimates put the total power generation demands of global data centers at 1.5% but warn that that figure could increase to 4.5% in the coming years absent intervention.SUQIAN, CHINA - FEBRUARY 2, 2024 - Illustration Meta plans to increase AI investment in Suqian, Jiangsu Province, China, February 2, 2024.
Meta’s AI full-court press
If you use any Meta product — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger — buck up for an onslaught of AI. The social media giant is rolling out AI-powered assistants across its apps in unavoidable ways.
Meta’s AI, quite simply, will be everywhere: in your searches, conversations with friends, and chiming to conversations on Facebook groups. It’s powered by the company’s LLaMA 3 model, and is meant to help you answer questions or complete tasks — whatever you want, really. GZERO searched for Thai food on Instagram and instantly initiated a conversation with the Meta AI chatbot. (It gave five good options nearby.)
Meta has taken an open-source approach to developing artificial intelligence, releasing its powerful model for the world to use. That’s different from rivals like OpenAI, which charge consumers and companies to use their closed-source tech.
Now, it’s putting its models to use in a bid to ensure you spend as much time on its platforms as possible. Meta’s bread and butter, as an advertising giant, is attention. If you don’t need to leave Instagram to Google something, or write something with ChatGPT, that’ll quickly mean more money for Meta.
If users aren’t so horribly annoyed or creeped out that they disengage completely, that is. 404 Media reported that Meta’s AI told a parents group on Facebook that it has a disabled-yet-gifted child before the company received complaints and removed the comments. And, for people who want to opt out entirely, it doesn’t help that currently there’s no real way to turn the AI off either.Meta AI logo is seen in this illustration taken September 28, 2023
AI labels are coming to Instagram and Facebook. Will they work?
Sir Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, announced Tuesday their platforms would begin labeling AI-generated images.
Meta is working with AI image generators like Midjourney and Shutterstock to add metadata to images that have been created by artificial intelligence, which will then automatically trigger a label when posted. Clegg framed it as a crucial safety measure and said the company would build the technology over the next year.
There are some drawbacks. First, the technology won’t work on video or audio yet, but Clegg says Meta will take down any unlabelled AI-generated clip that “creates a particularly high risk of materially deceiving the public on a matter of importance.”
Second, even still images may be able to get around Meta’s detector by doing something as simple as processing it through photo editing software to generate new metadata, according to experts.
And as far as AI-generated text, Clegg says it would be pointless to try to identify and label it all. “That ship has sailed,” he told Reuters.