[HN] Facebook won't lift ban in Canada even for sharing wildfire info
The Canadian government on Friday demanded that Meta lift a "reckless" ban on domestic news from its platforms to allow people to share information about wildfires in the west of the country.
[ comments | sourced from HackerNews
I'm honestly kind of with Facebook on this one. Imagine if Lemmy admins had to pay a fee for every link we share on here. Why is Facebook singled out? What am I missing?
Not sure but what really bothers me is that joke that you have to pay for an article additionally to the ad revenue the outlet gets. I mean yes, you pay for a newspaper on the street but there is a vendor to sell it and he has to pay for the stand, electricity, water, etc.
With online services that also run ads and probably get you reading the rest and get you buy a paid subscription.
I think news agencies are the baddies here. If they don’t want their stuff seen on facebook, they should paywall it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
OTTAWA, Aug 18 (Reuters) - The Canadian government on Friday demanded that Meta (META.O) lift a "reckless" ban on domestic news from its platforms to allow people to share information about wildfires in the west of the country.
Some people fleeing wildfires in the remote northern town of Yellowknife have complained to domestic media that the ban prevented them from sharing important data about the fires.
"Meta's reckless choice to block news ... is hurting access to vital information on Facebook and Instagram," Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a social media post.
Chris Bittle, a legislator for the ruling Liberal Party, complained on Thursday that "Meta's actions to block news are reckless and irresponsible."
In response, a Meta spokesperson said by email that the company had activated the "Safety Check" feature on Facebook that allows users to spread the word that they are safe in the wake of a natural disaster or a crisis.
Canadians can use Facebook and Instagram to access content from official government agencies, emergency services and non-governmental organizations, the spokesperson added.
The original article contains 314 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 44%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
