This piece is a guest contribution, published as part of the Dais’ commitment to being Canada’s platform for bold ideas and better leadership. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Dais or its staff.

Guest author

Mostafa Al-A’sar
Toronto-based writer and journalist

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Instead of Bending to Meta, Ottawa Should Toughen Up – and Seek Out Alternatives for News Distribution

By Mostafa Al-A’sar – Toronto-based writer and journalist

Illustration of the Parliament of Canada

In January, Ottawa and Meta resumed negotiations about restoring news on Facebook and Instagram, ahead of next July’s review of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). There appears to be a mutual intention to reach a swift resolution, especially after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told a congressional committee in December that the Online News Act is a trade irritant because it treats U.S. companies unfairly. Canadian Heritage Minister Marc Miller stated that Ottawa is willing to be “flexible” as trade talks continue.

The Online News Act (ONA), which took effect in 2023, requires the largest online communications platforms in search and social media – in practice, only Google and Meta qualified – to provide fair compensation to Canadian news organizations for the distribution of their content. It was inspired by Australian legislation, the News Media Bargaining Code.

While Google reached an agreement to pay $100 million annually over five years to Canadian and Indigenous news businesses, Meta refused to comply with the act by providing compensation, opting instead to block Canadian news content on its platforms.

The Canadian government would like news back on Facebook and Instagram, but at what cost? Rather than bending on its law, deepening Canada’s dependence on a big foreign tech company for news distribution, and further undermining digital sovereignty, Ottawa should toughen its position – and support alternative platforms for Canadians to access journalism.

Rather than flexibility, accountability?

After nearly three years of a news blackout that has harmed Canadian journalism and Canadians’ ability to freely access information, flexibility with the ONA must never mean surrender to Meta pressure — especially if the company’s demand is to restore news without being held accountable for providing fair compensation.

It would further financially undermine Canadian media, especially the small- and mid-sized news businesses with little leverage to negotiate directly with large foreign entities.

Last month, the Local Independent Television Stations (LITS), a coalition of 15 TV stations, asked the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to confirm that Meta continues to “make news available” in Canada for some media organizations or TV shows. LITS counsel Peter Miller warned that Meta may seek deals with large media players while ignoring smaller organizations. “The survival of smaller independent players and news media diversity generally is the most at risk here,” he told MediaPolicy.

If flexibility means bending to the large, powerful online platforms by allowing them to pick and choose which organizations to do deals with and determine what news content they’re willing to allow, Ottawa should pass. A stronger position would be to hold Meta accountable for complying with the ONA.

The Canadian Journalism Collective (CJC-CCJ), an independent organization, was created to manage the fair distribution of Google’s annual $100-million fund to news organizations nationwide. The amount of grants depends on the organization’s size, the total number of employees, and their annual work hours.

According to its open data, 455 newsrooms received funding in the first year. Grants range from a few hundred dollars to several million. Only 20 media companies received more than $1 million, including The Globe and Mail, CBC, Rogers, Bell, TorStar, and other major outlets. Small- and medium-sized newsrooms represent the vast majority of funding recipients: 151 organizations received less than $20,000, and 132 received less than $50,000.

A related issue with the ONA is that the regulation does not define “news” in precise terms, which has opened the door to unequal practices and differential treatment of Canadian outlets.

If a platform is classified as a Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization (QCJO), it is blocked by Meta. But what if a media business produces original news content but is not classified as a QCJO? This happened with Narcity, a local online media organization with feeds in large Canadian cities, whose content was later restored on Meta platforms. Narcity’s CEO, Chuck Lapointe, wrote on LinkedIn: “If the government doesn’t consider us a news organization, why would Meta?”

Australia offers another compelling example. Although Meta previously agreed to compensate Australian outlets, it has delayed renewing those agreements. In response, Australia introduced legislation that would impose an annual tax exceeding AUD 112 million on platforms refusing to pay for news. This tax can be entirely waived if Meta agrees to finalize the deal to pay AUD 75 million to newsrooms.

Meta’s decision to block news entirely exposed a weakness in Canada’s law. Australia appears to have recognized this loophole and is attempting to close it through financial penalties. Ottawa may need to consider a similar strategy to ensure platform accountability, even if doing so creates friction with the Trump administration during trade negotiation.

If a deal with Meta and the return of news to Facebook and Instagram are imminent, we must ensure that local journalism and smaller media organizations are protected, and that legal loopholes allowing unequal treatment of media outlets are closed.

Canada should build its own news distribution alternatives

Even still, restoring news to Meta platforms is only a partial solution, which is not enough to protect journalism and online free expression. It could reinforce vulnerabilities in our journalism system, as readers return to relying on getting their news from dominant social platforms as a primary source. Instead, Canadians need to develop their own alternative news distribution sources.

There are many examples of upstart social media platforms. Bluesky platform respects user privacy and algorithm control, but remains largely niche and requires significant development. The same thing applies to the Australian alternative Upscrolled, which gained 2.5 million users as of this February. In 2022, the European Commission set up its own server on Mastodon’s decentralized social network to “support the social media platforms based on open source technology.” Canada’s own Gander is just getting on its feet.

We also witness a surge in other online publishing sites for creators, like Patreon, Substack and Medium, where journalists, writers, bloggers and digital creators migrate, create their own newsletters, blogs and podcasts and build communities around them.

Building platform alternatives in Canada requires substantial effort, consensus, and coordination among publishers to overcome challenges related to funding, sustainability, marketing, and user acquisition.

And here is the role of resilience, creativity, patience and government adoption. Resilience and solidarity between media outlets and the will to create a sustainable solution, which could be, for example, a new app only for the Canadian press, or a collective effort to develop other creative solutions, with the patience to see them grow and gain the audience’s trust.

The government has a role to play by adopting and encouraging such initiatives, while also introducing targeted calls for innovation, such as grants and project-based funding, to support the development of sustainable alternatives.

A two-part action plan for Canada

The immediate priority is clear: restoring news to Facebook and Instagram, and holding Meta accountable for complying with the law and paying fair compensation to Canadian publishers. But this dispute should also be viewed as part of a larger strategy.

Canada cannot rely solely on regulation. It needs a long-term plan to invest in domestic technological infrastructure, strengthen open-source ecosystems, and reduce structural dependence on foreign platforms. It is time to join the global trend of asserting digital sovereignty and rejecting American technological dependency.

Protecting journalism, privacy, and digital sovereignty ultimately requires building alternatives that are competitive, secure, and publicly accountable.