By Aditi Roy

Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) students share mixed opinions on the possibility of Canadian journalism coming back to social media.

Last month, the Canadian Press reported that the federal government is still open to negotiating a deal with Meta, in an effort to restore Canadian news access on prominent social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

On Dec. 19, 2023, Bill C-18 came into effect across Canada, mandating that “digital platforms” pay Canadian news outlets for providing their content. This was done in an effort to ensure fair compensation for said outlets.

Google agreed to pay Canadian journalism outlets $100 million per year to be exempted from the act.

However Meta refused, blocking Canadian news on their platforms Instagram and Facebook.

Nussaiba Iftekhar, a first-year graduate biomedical engineering student says social media can be beneficial to keeping the younger generation informed of the news when certain things are kept in mind. “At the end of the day, to push [non-]polarizing information is what should be the goal not to push polarizing opinions,” she said.

“I think it’d be a good thing, because it’s always good to have more sources of information”

In an interview with the Canadian Press, New Democratic Party (NDP) member of Parliament, Gord Johns stressed the importance of renegotiations due to the falling of local Canadian news outlets as well as the growing need to combat misinformation on social media.

Harshraj Parmar, a fourth-year computer engineering student, sees the value of having news featured on social media. “I think it’d be a good thing, because it’s
always good to have more sources of information,” said Parmar.

However, he also recognizes its drawbacks. “It’s very easy to just post anything without any evidence backing up what you’re saying. I feel like, as humans, everybody is very susceptible to falling for…lies,” he said.

Statistics Canada found Canadians aged 15-24 were most likely to get news from social media.

A few students express their growing sense of skepticism around Canadian journalism outlets and the value their social media presence will add.

“We live in a time where education is so important, where you need to…stay updated…”

Kunga Shapheltsang, second-year occupational health and safety student, echoes this sentiment.

“Some news stations are inherently…right-wing or left-wing…you can’t always trust what they all say about [a] situation because there will be some bias,” he said.

While students expressed mixed feelings about the renegotiations, experts in the field raise larger concerns about the sustainability of Canadian journalism.

Professor James Turk, the director of the Centre for Free Expression at TMU, commented on the need for this act to safeguard Canadian news outlets.

“Platforms like Google and Meta [Facebook and Instagram] are gobbling up 75 to 80 per cent of all the advertising revenue…the principal source of funding for the news media,” he said.

A study by the Media Ecosystem Observatory found that Canadian outlets lost 85 per cent of their engagement from Instagram and Facebook after the ban.

A study found that Canadian outlets lost 85 per cent of their engagement from Meta

Turk fears that Ottawa may back down under the pressure from U.S president Donald Trump and the American technology conglomerates. “That will be a devastating blow to [the] news media in Canada,” he said.

David Skok, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Logic—an independent business and technology newsroom—feels strongly against the potential redaction of Bill C-18, calling it “short-sighted” in a recent LinkedIn post.

Skok also testified before the Senate in support of the bill in 2023.*

“Journalism helped Facebook, then Meta, scale. The moment the company faced a requirement to license that journalism, or lost control over the terms, it walked
away,” he wrote.

He ended his post stating, “short-term distribution is never worth compromising the public interest.”

Skok acknowledged that not being on social media interferes with news outlets’ ability to tap into a younger audience.

“Younger generations are always a challenge for news organizations, right? Meta is the reason why news is not on Meta and Meta could very easily change could very easily change that today,” he said in an interview with The Eyeopener.

Luke LeBrun, the editor of PressProgress, expresses similar concerns
regarding his organization’s reach.

“Before Meta banned news, Facebook drove hundreds of thousands of readers to our stories every single month. The loss of that readership has had a significant impact on our web traffic and ability to reach new audiences,” he said in an email
statement to The Eye.

Despite LeBrun’s disappointment with lower readership, he notes the importance of compensating Canadian news outlets.

“American tech companies like Meta need to pay their fair share of taxes on the profits they generate in Canada, and platforms like Facebook also need to be better regulated to ensure they are contributing to a healthy and democratic public discourse.”

Turk noted the need for Canadian news companies to be paid their fair share, pointing to the fall of credible journalism outlets across the country.

“I mean, all the media across the country are in trouble. The Toronto Star…which has the biggest circulation of any newspaper in the country, has been in pretty
serious financial trouble for some time,” he said.

In 2023, CBC reported that NordStar, Toronto Star’s parent company, was putting the newspaper under bankruptcy protection and slashed 600 jobs.

Turk reiterated the importance of high-quality journalism for the future of our societies.

“Our democracy is fundamentally undermined when the press is weakened,” he said.

“Journalists are the public’s eyes and ears into all sorts of things. So when local media disappear from communities, there’s nobody covering what’s happening…it makes it so much harder for public bodies to be held accountable.”