I was in my fourth year at Western University and very involved in the student newspaper, the Western Gazette, when the Trudeau government passed the Online News Act in 2023. This was the Canadian law requiring tech giants to pay outlets for hosting their news.
It was a well-intentioned attempt to save Canadian journalism. And indeed, Google agreed to a $100-million annual payout to help sustain media outlets across the country. But in response, Meta decided to simply block news content altogether from Instagram and Facebook for Canadians.
