Meta's decision to block news links in Canada this month has had almost no impact on Canadians' usage of Facebook, data from independent tracking firms indicated on Tuesday, as the company faces scorching criticism from the Canadian government over the move.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Daily active users of Facebook and time spent on the app in Canada have stayed roughly unchanged since parent company Meta started blocking news there at the start of August, according to data shared by Similarweb, a digital analytics company that tracks traffic on websites and apps, at Reuters’ request.
Another analytics firm, Data.ai, likewise told Reuters that its data was not showing any meaningful change to usage of the platform in Canada in August.
The shift has resulted in a dramatic reduction in news consumption via social media, according to recent reports by the Reuters Institute and Pew Research Center.
Meta’s other big social platform Instagram is less of a presence in the news environment as it does not enable links within individual user posts.
Canadian government officials have accused Meta of brinkmanship in wiping its platforms of news in a moment of heightened need in Canada as wildfires force thousands of people from their homes, even as quiet negotiations over those rules continue behind the scenes.
Specific rules addressing how the law will be implemented are due to be released by late December, after which point the platforms would be expected to finalize deals with publishers.
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