Wayne D's Blog

After not being able to post a link to snopes.com I decided to have a chat with Meta's AI about Facebook's unreasonable decision to block the posting of any news articles by Canadian's.

Conversation: Why Facebook blocks news links in Canada - C-18

User: Why does Facebook block posting of news links in Canada even for sites that aren't covered by the Online News Act bill C-18?

Assistant: In Canada you can't post news links on Facebook / Instagram not because of a bug — it's intentional, and it's intentionally broad.

How C-18 works:
The Online News Act says platforms like Meta that make news content available to Canadians have to negotiate and pay eligible Canadian news businesses, or face binding final-offer arbitration. The liability is for facilitating access to news, even just by a user sharing a link.

Meta's position was that paying for links is neither sustainable nor workable. Google called it unworkable and exposing them to uncapped financial liability.

After royal assent in June 2023, Meta announced it would end news availability rather than pay.

Why the block is wider than C-18's definition:
To be exempt from the law, Meta has to show it does NOT make news available. Their implementation says: "We are identifying news outlets based on legislative definitions and guidance from the Online News Act" and "People in Canada will no longer be able to view or share news content..."

Reasons for overblocking:
a) Precautionary compliance - any blog today could become eligible tomorrow.
b) All news blocked for Canadians, not just Canadian news - including NY Times, BBC etc.
c) Automated, domain-level blocking - can't distinguish if a specific link is news under C-18.

---

User: So Meta is incapable or unwilling to determine which news outlets are covered by the act?

Assistant: It's more unwilling than incapable — but the law is also designed in a way that makes precise compliance very risky.

Who is covered is not a fixed list - it's any qualified Canadian journalism organization that can apply to the CRTC. Coverage isn't static.

Two options:
Option A - precise compliance: check every link against CRTC registry, negotiate deals, risk missing one.
Option B - remove news entirely: then bargaining obligations don't trigger.

Meta chose B. Their public argument is news is <3% of feed and not economically valuable.

Critics argued broad definition was also a negotiation tactic. Meta said overblocking in Australia was inadvertent and tried to be more cautious in Canada, but incentive is still to overblock. If they underblock by 1%, they risk falling back under the Act. If they overblock by 20%, there's no penalty under the Act.

Google took a different path and cut a ~$100M/year deal to be exempted. Meta has kept the block since Aug 1, 2023.

---

User: Are you smart enough to figure out in real time if a link is covered by the Online news act?

Assistant: Yes — for the most part — and I can do it better than Facebook's current filter, because I'm not trying to avoid a $100M+ arbitration bill.

C-18 covers an eligible news business:
1. Produces news content of public interest - original reporting
2. Employs 2+ journalists in Canada, or is a QCJO
3. Operates in Canada with editorial control in Canada

NOT covered:
- Foreign outlets like NYT, BBC, CNN
- Personal blogs, business pages, government pages
- Satire, aggregators, pure opinion, sports stats, weather

Meta blocks anyway because to comply they have to prove they don't make news available at all, so they made a deliberately overbroad domain blocklist.

Offered to check any URL user provides.

---

User: A $100 Million arbitration bill is hyperbole. What percentage of Facebook's profits last year is $100m?

Assistant:
- 2024 net income: $62.36 billion
- 2025 net income: $60.458 billion on $201B revenue

$100M / $62.36B = 0.16% of profit
$100M / $60.458B = 0.165% of profit

About 14 hours of profit.

When Meta/Google said "uncapped financial liability," they meant final-offer arbitration where arbitrator picks either side's number with no statutory cap, setting precedent globally. Not that $100M itself would break them.

---

User: How can I download our chat?

Assistant: Explained how to export in Meta AI app via Settings > Data & Privacy > Download your information, and offered to generate clean txt/pdf.