Meta has fixed a bug that temporarily prevented 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 blocking did not carry over to Threads.
But a number of Threads users wondered if that had changed when they started seeing alerts suggesting otherwise. “People in Canada cannot view this content,” reads one Threads-branded notice. “Content from news publishers cannot be accessed in Canada in response to Canadian government legislation.”
It’s unclear how widespread the bug was or how long it lasted. Reports of the problem appeared to surface on Monday, with some users still unable to view the links as of Tuesday morning. “Well…this sucks. @meta is stepping up its news blocking in Canada, previously only on Facebook and Instagram, now on Threads,” Pedro Marques wrote in Monday.
A Meta spokesperson told Engadget that the Online Information Act framework does not apply to Threads, at least for now. Still, the fact that the notice appeared sparked speculation that the company could eventually block news content on Threads as well.
In recent years, the world’s biggest tech companies have battled with countries over how to pay for news. In 2021, for example, Facebook blocked Australians from sharing news links, while Google to stop featuring content from Australian news publishers on Google News. However, the two companies finally reached agreements and agreed to start paying Australian news agencies.
In August, Meta news on Facebook and Instagram in Canada in response to the country’s online news law that requires platforms to pay news organizations to compensate for lost advertising revenue. Google, which previously pledged to block news links in the country, ended up the country’s government and agreed to pay Canadian publishers around $100 million a year, At Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Although Meta downplayed the news about Threads, Instagram head 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 application has grown to approximately users, as more and more people look for alternatives to Twitter.
However, blocking news could make the app much less useful for users and publishers, who have started to see of the service. “How will Threads replace Twitter when I can’t even click on a news story in Canada without being blocked by Meta,” a Threads user named dexter. after encountering the bug.
This article was originally published on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-says-a-bug-briefly-blocked-news-for-canadian-users-on-threads-220230063.html? src=rss
