« Will she really dare? » That's the question haunting Canadian newsrooms — and their international counterparts — in the summer of 2023. For several weeks, Meta has been threatening to cut off access to news. The culprit is the Online News Act, a law passed by the Senate in June 2023, requiring major digital firms, including Meta and Google, to pay media outlets for distributing their content.
An affront, according to Meta, which prefers pouring billions of dollars into the virtual realms of the metaverse and drawing from libraries of pirated books to train its AIs rather than strengthening the press. A curious turnaround for a company that still recently claimed that journalism played "an important role in the pursuit of truth, by telling the stories that define Canadians and holding powerful people and institutions accountable for their actions" in a post touting Meta's role in the media ecosystem. In that same note, a brief passage now takes on an entirely different resonance: "Links to news articles represent less than 3% of what Canadians see in their news feed". What appeared then as a harmless statistic reveals itself today to be a barely veiled warning: "You need us far more than we need you".
« They figured they had to be bluffing, as if a mega tech company would ever question the ethics of banning the press from its platforms » recalls, with bitter hindsight, Savannah Stewart, journalist at The Rover, an investigative news outlet based in Montreal. But in August, Mark Zuckerberg's company actually went through with it: Canadian media outlets are officially banned. On Instagram and Facebook, their accounts become inaccessible, replaced by a terse message: « Due to Canadian government legislation, news cannot be viewed in Canada ». Translation: Meta had nothing to do with it. Google would sign a few months later an agreement, agreeing to pay 100 million dollars to Canadian media outlets.
Meta's decision dealt a severe blow to Canada's media ecosystem, drastically affecting audiences and destabilizing the financial balance of many publications. However, newsrooms quickly explored alternative approaches and developed new strategies to bounce back and win back their audiences.
Stay connected with your community
When Savannah Stewart joined The Rover in May 2023, she set herself an objective: to develop the media's presence on Instagram. « I really wanted to revive the Instagram account. We went from 1,000 followers to 3,000 in the space of a month and I was delighted ». But a few months later, the axe fell and the media lost access to that part of its community.
For The Rover, which receives 80% of its budget from its readers, staying connected with its community is vital. The outlet is therefore attempting to apply a new strategy. Rather than abandoning Instagram entirely, it has transformed how it uses the platform and created a new account: therover.community. The focus is now on face-to-camera videos with journalists, in the style of a vlog: behind-the-scenes content, reflections on journalistic practices, cultural recommendations, and more. The tone is more personal, designed to foster dialogue, and journalists only briefly reference current events to avoid triggering Meta's algorithms. The newsroom uses this space to interact with its readers by inviting them to ask questions and responding to their comments. A practice also adopted by other Canadian outlets to work around Meta's new rules, and it's working. Today, this new account has more than 6,000 followers, compared to 3,000 on the old one. "We are regaining our momentum," the journalist says with satisfaction. A strategy focused primarily on behind-the-scenes content that is reflected across the outlet's entire editorial offering, notably through a new format launched last January: "Editor's note," a monthly column written by Savannah Stewart that aims, once again, to reveal the inner workings of the outlet through different themes: finances, editorial reflections, and so on. The Rover can also rely on its newsletter (6,500 subscribers), which has been, like many other newsrooms, a valuable channel during this period of crisis.
This was the case, for example, with The Tyee, a media outlet based in British Columbia. Launched in 2003, a few months before Mark Zuckerberg launched his social network from his Harvard dorm room, the outlet long operated without these platforms. Yet, like most of its peers, The Tyee eventually integrated Meta's apps into its communications toolkit. The American company then multiplied efforts to appeal to media outlets and present itself as a solution to their problems. An investment from which The Tyee even benefited, receiving a grant in 2019 from Facebook. Ironically, it was a program designed to help media outlets retain their audiences.
David Beers, founder and editor-in-chief of The Tyee, isn't fooled: "Facebook was mainly trying to defend itself against the regulations and government interventions it's facing today around the world. It was trying to push them back by co-opting the media and befriending them in different countries".
The Tyee was quick to show skepticism about using Facebook, alerting to the sector's growing dependence on the platform, particularly in the late 2010s when its approach to issues like misinformation raised doubts and concerns. So when the ban came in 2023, The Tyee was able to rely on a precious — and substantial — database of email addresses patiently built over more than twenty years: "We'd set up booths at folk festivals and sign people up one by one so they'd receive our newsletters," he recalls with amusement. Today, this database gives the outlet direct access to its readers, without depending on platforms. It also allows it to convert readers into donors more precisely and efficiently: "You don't have total control on Facebook and other platforms but you have great control over email because you can segment your lists and speak directly to specific members," argues the outlet's editor, who currently offers six newsletters.
Stand together
In response to Meta's decision, several independent Canadian media outlets also came together around a common project: Unrigged, a site that aggregates articles, podcasts and newsletters from partner media in a primarily chronological feed, free from algorithms. A project that was already on André Goulet's mind, a podcast producer and host, before the summer of 2023, but which Meta's decision greatly accelerated: "We worked around the clock to create the website and bring together all the collaborators. All of this was done in about five months, between June and November 2023," says the man who now co-directs the project as community director. "The behind-the-scenes relationships are such that there's no real hierarchy," he clarifies. "Decisions that are made are made collectively, for example when welcoming new media outlets."
Supported by grants and accompanied by SEIZE, Concordia University's solidarity economy incubator, the platform requires no financial participation from its members. In return, participating media outlets agree only to promote the platform among their readers. Eighteen months later, André Goulet claims success in terms of traffic. But beyond these statistics, the platform has created ideal conditions to encourage newsrooms to draw closer together, even to the point of sharing resources. « I'm in the offices of La Converse right now and it's partly thanks to Unrigged », explains Savannah Stewart from behind her webcam, noting that their mutual participation in this project brought the two Quebec newsrooms closer together. According to her, the crisis caused by Meta encouraged pooling of resources and collective dynamics between media outlets: « Despite the hard blow we suffered losing access to Facebook and Instagram, I think it gave us a reason to set aside our small differences or our competitiveness to see what we could do better by working together. I think the independent media landscape is much stronger because of a project like Unrigged ».
A sentiment shared by André Goulet: « Since our launch, the process of building a space where people can work around the competitive factor — even though it's still part of the equation — to build relationships and find ways to stimulate each other, collaborate and amplify one another has proven interesting ».
For David Beers, collaboration also involves sharing audiences. A strategy already adopted by The Tyee, which features a section directing readers to other publications and reshares articles published by other media outlets on its site. This is the case, for example, with The Conversation, whose articles are distributed under a free license.
For David Beers, this need for newsrooms to connect communities with one another could result in the emergence of a new generation of press groups: "We could see a renaissance of media conglomerates. You could create your own media alongside another and, because you're part of the same company, you'd be helped to find subscribers by sharing your newsletter in others' newsletters".
One step forward and one step back?
While The Tyee's traffic initially declined following Meta's decision, it has now reached an all-time high. A phenomenon that its editor-in-chief partly explains through a proactive approach by Canadian readers in their news consumption, who now seek to build concrete and solid relationships with their media outlets, even to fund them, knowing they will no longer have access via Facebook or Instagram. "We're seeing a strong increase in people arriving at The Tyee on their own," he observes. This dynamic unfolds in a tense political context, fueled by Donald Trump's attacks on Canada, which has rekindled interest in rich and comprehensive information rather than simplistic and digestible content. A trend notably observed among younger generations, who now seek human interlocutors in their media and action levers to implement concrete solutions. For David Beers, "it's not enough to say that by the standards of good journalism, we do good journalism." To stand out and become indispensable to their community, newsrooms must according to him focus on their local roots and values: "If I'm a progressive person living in British Columbia who needs to know what's happening for my work and life, I cannot see The Tyee disappear." A clear interest among some readers for information that shares their own perspective, rather than supposedly "impartial" information, has been documented in a recent study.
For Savannah Stewart, this episode mainly prompted media outlets, including The Rover, to re-examine their relationship with platforms in general and to strengthen their digital sovereignty through projects like Unrigged and native formats: "We realized we don't own our Instagram account. It can be taken from us at any time. I think there was a kind of awakening: we need to focus on what we own". Despite this progress, the ban is both a serious blow and a source of concern. Facebook remains a major news source in certain territories. "What will happen to small independent publications, those that serve Indigenous communities in the North?" Savannah Stewart wonders. Social networks make up a large part of the business model for these small newsrooms". That's what Eden Fineday, editor of IndigiNews, a British Columbia online news outlet, believes, for whom the situation is " even more catastrophic" for Indigenous media, she told Radio-Canada. For the outlet, strengthening efforts on newsletters is therefore not enough. IndigiNews, which drew 40% of its total traffic from Facebook, tested various strategies, including displaying QR codes in public spaces redirecting to their content. Like many other newsrooms in Canada, IndigiNews also resorted to advertising on Facebook. Therein lies the paradox: if Meta blocks the press because it doesn't want to pay them, it's still possible for media to pay the company for sponsored content redirecting to their articles. According to CJR, Eden Fineday did the math: paying to promote each article on Facebook represented an annual budget between 15,000 and 20,000 dollars. Adapting to the ban also requires improvisation. Faced with opaque moderation rules and algorithms, Canadian newsrooms navigate by trial and error and test the limits of Meta. To avoid being censored, Unrigged is careful about the vocabulary used: " Facebook hasn't banned Unrigged yet. We simply avoid saying the word 'journalism' too often in our posts" explains André Goulet.
An uncertain future
But if newsrooms like The Rover and The Tyee manage to limit the damage, it's notably because they already had an existing community and strong local roots. If newsletters seem to offer an interesting solution, for example, they have a major drawback. While social media can act as a kind of large storefront – admittedly flawed – through which a reader might stumble upon a media outlet's article somewhat by chance, it's much harder to discover new newsletters and new sites without promotion. Meta's decision could thus pose a far heavier threat to newsrooms that haven't yet launched and could stifle the emergence of new independent media. "We're going to get through this, we might become smaller, but we'll continue to exist, summarizes David Beers. But what Facebook is doing is sterilizing the soil. No seeds will ever germinate."
Today, opinions differ on the benefits of this law. Even the amount paid by Google (100 million dollars) falls well short of official projections, which estimated a contribution of 172 million dollars. Today, those bearing the drastic consequences of this law are media outlets – and not just small independent newsrooms – picking up the pieces painfully. Meta, for its part, prefers to let the clock tick, even if it means letting misinformation spread. The law provides that its results will be reassessed five years after its implementation, namely in 2028.
To go further:
- Facing rising paper costs and growing dependence on social media algorithms, URBANIA chose to take back control of its distribution. A closer look at their Micromag format, a 100% digital magazine hosted on their site.
- Unpredictable algorithms, traffic collapse, platform dependence: media outlets find themselves trapped by an Internet they no longer control. How can they preserve their connection with their audience? A roundup of current initiatives.
- Where democratic freedoms are threatened by the rise of the far right and media concentration undermines the diversity of information, pooling resources becomes essential for independent outlets.
