Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday criticized Meta for blocking domestic news from its platforms, saying the Facebook-parent was prioritizing profit over safety as devastating wildfires force tens of thousands to evacuate their homes.
Trudeau’s comments represent the latest government attack on Meta, which this month started blocking news on its Facebook and Instagram platforms for all users in Canada in response to a new law requiring internet giants to pay for news articles.
Canada shouldn’t become a country where the government decides what we see, hear, and do. They already meddle in that too much, and blocking websites that aren’t engaging in illegal activity is absurd. Will they block the Fediverse next?
All Meta is doing here is complying with the new law. The government said “pay to link to news sites or stop linking to them” and that’s exactly what Meta is doing. It’s another stupid law pushed by corporate Canada for their own benefit, and now they’re surprised at the most obvious outcome.
They don’t police what we hear, see, or do. At all. What they should do is ban platforms that refuse to be responsible for the misinformation on their platforms. Especially when that misinformation leads to emergencies like the trucker convoy. Or the misinformation that lead to the vast amount of anti-vaxx sentiment. Just need to look at our closest neighbors to see how well unfettered free speech is going.
This place is a commie echo chamber even more deranged than Reddit was. Good luck expressing any sort of dissenting opinion.
Wahhh my chosen megacorp has to pay its dues to the country it does business in wahhhh
A business chose not to do business with us as an entire country because our government legislated them out of the market. It’s absolutely fucking hilarious when the same government makes idle threats towards the same business because they aren’t providing the same service they provided before the government made it clear that they would tax every post and regulate the internet by enforcing taxes on hyperlinks.
Our government has made the sharing of information a taxable manoeuvre. No fucking wonder referenced megacorp said “I’m just not gonna.”