Bzzz. Bzzz.
You open your phone to an avalanche of texts from your friends about some breaking news. Your fingertips brush against the cold, smooth glass of your phone screen. You move over to Instagram to see what all the buzz is about. The only problem? You can’t see the news.
In June 2023, the federal government passed Bill C-18, or the Online News Act, which requires dominant digital news intermediaries like Google and Meta to pay Canadian newsrooms for the use of their journalism.
This ensures newsrooms can secure fair compensation when their content is made available by digital news intermediaries and generate economic gain — it’s a win-win situation. Platforms that already profit off the news posted by publications can still get a piece of that pie while supporting local journalism. Cool, right?
Wrong — in response to this new bargaining structure, Google and Meta announced it would no longer share Canadian news on its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Threads. So, if you’ve ever wondered why you can’t see (or link) your favourite newspaper’s content on Instagram anymore, it’s because of Bill C-18.
Accessing news online, including on social media, is the most common way of accessing news in Canada, according to the 2024 Digital News Report by Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford. The report found that in 2022, 77 per cent of Canadians accessed news online and 55 per cent accessed news through social media. After the passing of Bill C-18, these numbers dropped to 69 per cent and 45 per cent respectively, showing that less people are accessing news through these digital intermediaries.
It isn’t just social media news consumption that has changed since the passage of C-18 — local and student publications are facing barriers to connecting with their audiences and oftentimes are being left out of discussions around the legislation that will impact them the most.
During a time when Canadians, specifically students, are increasingly accessing news via social media, how do local publications who can no longer share content through these platforms keep in touch with the communities they serve?
The little guys
The key aim of the Online News Act was to fairly compensate journalists for their online work. The hope was that the act would subsidize the journalism industry. The Parliamentary Budget Office estimated it would bring $300 million to Canadian media annually.
In a September 2023 statement, Minister of Canadian Heritage Pascale St-Onge said “the Online News Act requires these dominant [tech] platforms to bargain fairly with news businesses—both big and small.”
“Tech giants can and must contribute their fair share—nothing more. Canadians expect a vibrant news landscape where we can get the facts when we need them,” wrote St-Onge.
According to a The Conversation Canada article by UBC journalism professors Dr. Alfred Hermida and Dr. Mary Lynn Young, the act’s funding model might not actually help smaller newsrooms.
“There would be winners and losers under the act’s funding model, with larger conventional journalism organizations — mostly the big broadcasters, including the CBC — being the big winners. Small digital-born organizations would benefit the least,” wrote Hermida and Young.
Deals made from Bill C-18 favour large media corporations, leaving out the little guy — local and community publications, including student newsrooms like those at UBC.
In a July interview with The Ubyssey, Hermida said local newsrooms are trying to reconnect with their audiences by creating unique and “more direct … spaces for readers” such as newsletters in the wake of the Online News Act.
“It’s hard because if you’re a small local outlet, the challenge you face is people don’t know you exist, and you don’t have the marketing budget of a large media company so how do you then tell people you exist?” said Hermida. “You can’t do it through social media.”
Hermida said “over the last 10 years, newsrooms have largely been told social media is the way to reach newer and younger audiences — that’s where they live.”
According to a 2023 study from the Pew Research Centre, 69 per cent of US adults aged 18–29 access news from social media “at least sometimes." Additionally, 30 per cent of US adults 18–29 said they actually prefer to access news through social media.
After losing access to Instagram and Facebook, according to Hermida, newsrooms had “to reorient … and say, ‘What this has taught us is we can’t rely on these digital intermediaries because they can turn off the tap at any moment.’”
As an editor at The Ubyssey, my team and I have witnessed our articles get less engagement after being cut off from Meta’s platforms. Students live online, and oftentimes that’s how we find stories, connect with sources and distribute information to our community. We’ve had to pivot our social media outreach from Instagram and Facebook to other platforms such as TikTok and Reddit to keep our paper running.
In an interview with The Ubyssey, Young said the act "impacted everyone's access to audiences."
But according to Young, this impact is "uneven." While big news organizations may have lost parts of their audiences, smaller organizations might not have the resources to mitigate their losses.
"Some people are having a harder time accessing news and organizations are having to find innovative ways to share content without having access to Meta platforms," said Young.
The Instagram account for UBC’s campus and community radio station CiTR 101.9 FM and its arts and culture magazine Discorder was blocked for Canadians because of the Meta ban, but Programming Manager Ciara Reid said the group still has a “marginal Instagram presence.”
This is because the station adapted: It has a record label, Fanta Records, and CiTR has started to promote its work on the label’s social media pages.
Reid said CiTR is “doing what we can to still be present on the online sphere while also not flagging ourselves to be hidden again through that account.”
Alex Migdal, a UBC journalism professor and CBC’s senior producer of social media and audience development, said though the Meta ban could put up barriers for journalists, it breeds innovation. By using social media platforms that weren’t originally aimed at distributing news — like what Instagram used to be — newsrooms can reach audiences they wouldn’t have otherwise, expanding their scope to include a younger or more global audience.
The Canadian TikTok news audience is small, accounting for only eight per cent of news consumption in Canada according to the 2024 Digital News Report.
But TikTok seems to be growing — a study from the Pew Research Centre said TikTok saw the largest growth among people who regularly get their news from social media.
“We can reach people outside of Canada and any kind of journalist can build awareness of their news outlet … outside the confines of just their city, their province, their country,” said Migdal.
Reid said the way people learn about campus and community media is through social media. They compared social media to a “thread of connection.” Let’s say CiTR plays an artist’s music. This artist can post about their experiences with the station, which connects CiTR to that person’s audience.
“The thread of connection through social media … is a really big part of how we maintain our presence and our visibility.”
Consciously finding information
Though social media makes news accessible for audiences, it can sometimes miss important context.
“I think it’s really easy to get away with that stuff on TikTok, and I think that’s the unfortunate part about it,” said Migdal in an interview with The Ubyssey. “I’m of the mindset that balance is really important, context is really important — being accurate is important.”
According to a 2023 Statistics Canada report, Canadians aged 15–19, who are among the largest consumers of online social media content, were the least worried about misinformation compared to older demographics with only 14 per cent being concerned about false information online.
Meanwhile, nearly half of respondents said it was becoming more difficult to distinguish between true and false information.
"Misinformation can quickly spread across the Internet, when it is shared by readers and amplified through social media algorithms," wrote Statistics Canada. "While not a new phenomenon, concerns about misinformation and its impacts on society have grown in recent years, with the accelerating pace and volume of digital information-sharing."
While newsrooms may see a decline in community engagement because of the Meta ban, it may help Canadians become more media literate.
"It's making people continue to be more conscious about where they're getting their information from," said Young. "With the gap with Facebook, people have to force out other options and that's not always a bad thing, right?"
"Consciously looking for information, trying to assess quality, trying to assess perspective ... we live in an information society and those skills are required."
Amplifying varied voices
Student newsrooms being hidden by the Meta ban and C-18 doesn’t just pose concerns for the publications themselves — it hides news and information that centre the voices mainstream outlets often neglect. Despite having smaller budgets, resources and reach, it’s local newsrooms and radio stations that uplift underrepresented communities.
“We have such a unique presence in our media landscape as an organization that can say things that other people or other organizations might not have the liberty to say — to platform voices that just don’t get a platform elsewhere,” said Reid.
“You look at larger publications — they’re not going to pick up the same stories that we’re picking up. They’re not going to talk about the same things. [CiTR has a] mandate to be a platform for underrepresented voices … that is the key to what’s so important about what we do.”
According to research from the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA), “strong local journalism builds social cohesion, encourages political participation, and improves the efficiency and decision-making of local and state government.” And on a student scale, this can mean creating a campus community, encouraging students to vote in student government elections and putting pressure on the AMS and UBC to make changes that best suit student needs.
“Newspapers [play] a vital role in both educating us and building community,” wrote the NYSBA — this is something that Reid also believes. They said support for community and student publications fosters community.
“A lot of campus and community stations across the country are news platforms for their communities, especially in more rural areas and smaller communities,” said Reid.
I’ve witnessed the same at The Ubyssey — with over a hundred contributors annually, you’re bound to make at least a friend or two while reporting.
Reid said that organizations like CiTR have a low barrier to contribute. Like CiTR and Discorder, The Ubyssey doesn’t require any experience to get involved, which allows UBC students to get informal journalism experience on a campus that didn’t have an undergraduate journalism program until last year.
“Community radio [is] such a learning environment that allows people to enter into these spaces … and recognize that, not only does your voice have meaning and power, but people really want to hear what you have to say,” said Reid.
Lobbying for recognition
Groups such as the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA) and Canadian University Press (CUP) are lobbying for the inclusion of student media in decisions made regarding the Online News Act.
Reid said CiTR is lobbying MPs alongside the NCRA. For Reid, this includes reaching out to members of parliament and connecting with other campus and community radio stations across the country to not only “get ourselves back onto these platforms, but also to be included in … the funding opportunities that will come out of this bill.”
Reid, however, said their experience lobbying hasn’t been all positive.
“I’ve largely been ignored in contacting politicians in our area,” said Reid. They recounted a time they tried to arrange a call with an MP, but were contacted after working hours and then were ignored when they tried to follow up.
“I think [lobbying efforts are] not being taken as seriously in some locales … as we would like it to be,” said Reid. “Obviously these members of parliament are very busy — they have a lot going on, but it’s hard to see a lack of interest and a lack of care to an extent there.”
For example, when it comes to CiTR, Reid said the group shouldn’t have been hit by the Meta news ban at all, since it’s “quite inaccurate to consider CiTR a news organization.”
“CiTR really isn’t that in a lot of ways — we’re largely an arts and culture organization … We do occasionally provide some news content, but it’s very limited.”
Things aren’t too different on the student print side.
In a July 2023 statement, CUP President Andrew Mrozowski said the organization, which represents Canadian student papers, is “extremely concerned by Meta and Google’s decision to censor media in a time when we need it most.”
“We have heard many apprehensions from our membership about what this means for student-journalism,” wrote Mrozowski.
Two months earlier, in May 2023, CUP’s Vice President Amy St. Amand spoke to the Senate Steering Committee on Transport and Communications to advocate for student publications that would eventually be impacted by C-18.
“We are the Canadian University Press,” said St. Amand over Zoom to a room of senators, politicians and leaders of other media groups in Ottawa. “We forgive you if you haven’t heard of us before, but respectfully, that’s part of the problem.”
St. Amand said CUP members “have been making news for decades,” and have been “integral to Canada’s journalism.” CUP was not consulted on Bill C-18.
“Our members have been covering news like professionals, despite most of them being volunteers. And don’t forget, they’re still students … but despite all of that, they are still committed to educating their peers,” said St. Amand. “We know how crucial journalism is to our communities, if only everyone else did too.”
St. Amand said since CUP wasn’t included in converations about C-18, it has “no confidence” it will see the benefits of it.
“No single piece of legislation guarantees a bright future for journalism, including C-18,” said St. Amand. “But whatever the solution may be … we demand a seat at the table.”
And in July, when the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) opened a call for comment on Google’s exemption application under the Online News Act, Mrozowski wrote in a statement that the current funding allocation as administered by Google leaves out student publications as it does not “account for the unique structure and contributions of student-run publications.”
Student newspapers across Canada have varying structures, not to mention other non-news publications that are impacted by this bill, like CiTR and other student arts and culture publications.
“Many of our member organizations do not have the requisite number of full-time journalists, do not print physical editions, or are owned by student unions,” wrote Mrozowski. “These criteria unfairly marginalize student-journalists and undermine the spirit of Bill C-18.”
Google has negotiated an agreement with the Canadian Journalism Collective to distribute $100 million annually to Canadian news organizations. Google is now requesting an exemption from the Online News Act's mandatory bargaining.
The Online News Act requires the CRTC to establish and supervise the bargaining framework between news organizations and online platforms as well as to uphold government regulations, like allowing platforms to request an exemption from bargaining if they reach an agreement.
"Organizations with less [full-time equivalents] FTEs and organizations where they're not necessarily doing news have an uneven impact on their access to funding," said Young. "Ideally the government tries to address that through funding vehicles that support the gaps or the group that's giving out the Google monies. [The Canadian Journalism Collective] actually tries to address that."
Reid said including most campus and community stations in the ban is a “misguided approach on the part of Meta.”
“Obviously none of [these publications] should have been hidden,” said Reid. “It didn’t really look at actually what these organizations are doing and what kind of content they’re providing.”
Though Reid is hopeful the act will result in better funding for all Canadian media organizations, they said the impact has been “quite damaging to small organizations in [the media] sector.”
“I’m a little disappointed that it ended up this way.”
What now?
Bzzz. Bzzz.
You swipe out of your social media app, the glow of your phone screen illuminating your face, and look up the website of your favourite publication.
You’ve made it to the hot-topic story all your friends have been buzzing about, and it was written by your student publication. But this article is so much more than mere words on a screen.
Behind it is an entire community: a team of journalists, editors, fact-checkers, audio specialists, web and graphic designers and administrative staff whose articles are being hidden from you.
In the wake of the Online News Act, campus media, like CiTR and The Ubyssey are still working hard to serve you, and though you can’t turn to some social media for us — we’re still here.
And you know where to find us.
This article was originally published in The Ubyssey's July 31 print issue and is part of The Ubyssey's 2024 student action supplement,Press the Issue.
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