From the Editor: The Online News Act may be the wake-up call we need
Art by Christina Tran.
It’s been more than a year since the Online News Act came into law in Canada. Also known as Bill C-18, the legislation aimed to make large-scale digital platforms compensate news outlets for their content, but has only limited the accessibility of news for readers across the country.
In response to the Online News Act, Meta blocked Canadian news across its platforms, including The Runner’s Instagram and Facebook channels. While some may want to blame Meta for refusing to make a deal with the Canadian government as Google did this past December, this change in accessibility speaks louder volumes in relation to society’s news-seeking tendencies.
Statistics Canada found last year that 24 per cent of Canadians got their news from social media and 33 per cent stayed informed from the internet. In terms of traditional media, 28 per cent of Canadians got news from T.V., eight per cent stayed informed from the radio, and five per cent referred to print media. When looking at those aged 15 to 34, 85 per cent of people received their news from social media.
When you throw the Online News Act into this mix of statistics, it’s evident many Canadians are no longer being exposed to news at the same rates they were before. While popular platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and X have not been affected since the legislation rolled out, Facebook remains the most popular social media platform in the country with 26.59 million users, and Instagram takes second place with 20.65 million users, Made in CA reported.
Last year, I wrote a news story about the Online News Act, in which I interviewed Spencer Izen, a researcher for the British Columbia Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, who introduced me to the idea that Canadians’ inability to access news without Meta’s platforms shows there is a general lack of information seeking.
This was a concept that I quickly saw emerge among those around me. Over the past year, I’ve often found myself explaining what the Online News Act is and how it’s impacted Canadian news on social media to those who are unaware. On many occasions, those I encountered hadn’t realized their Facebook and Instagram feeds had actually changed.
While I find this unawareness concerning, the realization of how dependent people have become on social media — which is known to spread misinformation and disinformation — to learn about news is an even larger cause for concern.
We’ve grown into a comfortable rhythm of having news fed to us for free by scrolling through social media feeds, and it could be said the Online News Act is actually a result of this. These tendencies are no one’s fault, but rather the natural evolution growing with and into the internet.
As the Statistics Canada data could suggest, gone are the days of reading the daily newspaper or tuning into your local news radio, inevitably leading to the decline in newsrooms across the country.
When we depend on news to come to us instead of going after it, many may become uninformed and misinformed, which can be problematic on many fronts. It can be as large-scale as being unaware of the actions of our governing bodies and making uninformed decisions during election periods, or as small-scale as not knowing an item from your local grocery store was recalled and getting sick from consuming it.
Staying informed by the truth also sparks change, whether that be locally, nationally, or globally. When we rely on social media for our news, we can become ignorant and fall into algorithms of fake news, which can be hard to break out of.
If there was ever a time to change your information-seeking habits, it’s now — when those platforms that once fed us news are no longer doing so.
Luckily, there are still many avenues to go about seeking information, whether that be picking up a copy of your local newspaper, tuning into a radio station, or watching highlights from an evening news hour. If you can, pay for subscriptions to credible news outlets whose content is hidden behind paywalls and sign up for newsletters.
While the Online News Act may be here for the long run, all it takes is a conscious decision and a couple of minutes per day to change your news-seeking habits and stay informed.
