Meta has fixed a bug that was temporarily preventing some Threads users in Canada from reading and sharing news on the app, a company spokesperson told Engadget. Although Meta removed news content from Canadian users' Facebook and Instagram feeds earlier this year, the ban did not carry over to Threads.
But several Threads users wondered if that had changed when they started seeing alerts suggesting otherwise. “People in Canada cannot view this content,” said a Threads-branded ad. “News publishers' content cannot be viewed in Canada in response to Canadian government legislation.”
It's unclear how widespread the bug was or how long it was occurring. Reports of the issue appeared to emerge on Monday, with some users still unable to see the links as of Tuesday morning. “Well… that sucks. @meta is intensifying its news blocking in Canada, previously only on Facebook and Instagram, now on Threads,” wrote Pedro Marques on Monday.
A Meta spokesperson told Engadget that the Online News Act framework does not apply to Threads, at least for now. Still, the fact that the notice appeared has raised speculation that the company could eventually block news content on Threads as well.
In recent years, the world's biggest tech companies have fought with countries over paying for news. In 2021, for example, Facebook stopped people in Australia from sharing news links, while Google stopped showing content from Australian news publishers in Google News. However, both companies eventually settled and agreed to start paying Australian news organizations.
In August, Meta News on Facebook and Instagram in Canada in response to the country's Online News Act requiring platforms to pay news organizations to compensate for lost advertising revenue. Google, which had previously pledged to block news links in the country, finally bowed out the country's government and agreed to pay Canadian publishers around $100 million a year, toward Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Although Meta has downplayed the importance of the news on Threads, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said earlier this year that the company didn't want to “”on the platform: Blocking news on Threads could have a more dramatic impact on Threads than on Instagram and Facebook. The app has grown in users as more people look for alternatives to Twitter.
However, blocking news could make the app much less useful to users and editors, who have begun to see from service. “How will Threads replace Twitter when I can't even click on a news story in Canada without Meta blocking me?”, a Threads user named Dexter. after finding the error.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-says-a-bug-briefly-blocked-news-for-canadian-users-on-threads-220230063.html?src=rss
