Meta blocks news on Facebook and Instagram for users in Canada

Facebook and Instagram, which are owned by Meta, is preventing users in Canada to post or view news content. In June 2023, the Canadian government passed its Online News Act, Bill C-18, which requires big tech giants like Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content they share or otherwise repurpose on their platforms. Darren Major writes about the event here on CBC. Here is a full text of the act.

Threads launched by Meta Platforms

Meta Platforms launched a new social media platform titled Threads. The new platform is closely linked with Instagram but unlike Instagram it is more focused towards text-based posts. This makes it functionally similar to Twitter and has been referred to as the "Twitter killer" in some circles.

Posts on Threads can be 500 characters long and can contain photos, links and videos (up to 5 minutes length). Twitter which started with 140-character limit in 2006, currently provides 280-character limit for posts. At this point the platform is available as mobile apps for Android and iOS only.

This screenshot shows how the profile page looks like the on the Android app.

The announcement from Instagram is here.

Facebook's press release about the launch is here.