Not Because Of The Online News Law, Threads In Canada Can't Access News Because Of Bugs

JAKARTA Meta has withdrawn news from Facebook and Instagram in Canada towards the end of this year. Apparently, this policy began to be felt by Threads users who wanted to access the news.

A number of THreads users in Canada say they can't view news content and get a warning that reads, Canadians can't see this content.

Users can also see information that explains that the content is lost due to Canadian government laws. On this notification, there is a strong belief that Meta is starting to limit news access on Threads.

However, when asked directly about these restrictions, Meta explained that they did not withdraw news content in Threads. The company says that Threads are experiencing a mismatch on programming.

While Meta is against the Online News Law (UU), a Meta spokesperson told Engadget that this opposition did not apply in Threads, at least for now.

In August, Meta began blocking all news access for Facebook and Instagram users in Canada. This blocking is an answer to the Online News Law policy which began implementing on Tuesday, December 19.

Meta strongly opposes Canadian rules requiring its two platforms, namely Facebook and Instagram, to set aside compensation funds for the journalistic sector. For them, companies have no business relationship with the news media.

They never force all media in Canada to share news on their free platforms. On the other hand, journalists deliberately use Facebook and Instagram to gain profits.

The news outlets chose to use our free service for helping their advantages and the issuance of today's final regulations did not change our business decisions, said Canada's Meta Public Policy Chief, Rachel Curran, quoted by Reuters.

With the passing of the Online News Act in Canada, large technology companies with 20 million unique monthly users and annual revenues reaching US$748 million (Rp11.5 trillion) are required to provide compensation. Apart from Meta, Google is also subject to this rule.