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July 14, 2023 - 3:30 PM
BC news readers won't be seeing local stories show up on Facebook and Instagram as often as Meta tests its impending news blocks.
CHEK News and Nelson Star had their Instagram pages blocked from some Canadian users, but it's not clear just how many more will be impacted.
The Victoria broadcaster and the weekly Kootenay paper still have active Facebook pages, but they were each notified through their Instagram pages they were now blocked from Canadian users, according to screenshots posted to Twitter.
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Meta, the company that owns Instagram and Facebook, announced June 1 it would start testing its move to block news content from Canadians.
It didn't say exactly when those tests would begin, but did say it would continue for "several weeks."
"Randomized tests will help us build an effective product solution to end news availability in Canada as defined in Bill C-18," the news release reads.
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Bill C-18, which received royal assent on June 22, will require tech companies like Google and Meta to pay publishers for linking to their news content.
Those tech giants then threatened to block Canadian news content by the end of the year in protest of the new bill.
The BC and the federal government have responded by removing ads from Facebook.
A Meta spokesperson did not say how many Canadian or British Columbian news outlets would be affected by the test when asked by iNFOnews.ca.
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She said the ongoing tests impact a "small percentage of users" in an emailed response.
iNFOnews.ca has not been impacted by the test.
— With files from The Canadian Press.
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