Canada is on fire. This has been declared the country's worst wildfire season in modern history, made so much worse from climate change. Thousands are fleeing while homes, land, and resources are incinerated. Up-to-date reporting on the state of things is a lifeline for all, but
Meta -- which owns Facebook and Instagram -- is literally blocking local news orgs from spreading helpful information to terrified Canadians. Meta is playing with people's lives for profit.
Sign the petition and tell Mark Zuckerberg: let Canadians get the information they need to survive these wildfires!In June of 2023, Meta started blocking the sharing of news links on its platforms. The reason? Because Canada passed a law saying that news organizations could negotiate to get a bit of the profits from those shares, which makes a lot of sense.
Most of us come across articles on our social media feeds -- in fact,
research shows that nearly 90% of Americans "say they sometimes or often get news from digital media." It's reasonable that this new way of information sharing should inform how news organizations are paid. Local news is actually
losing money because of this imbalance with digital media giants -- but we desperately need trusted, funded news sources to stay informed, safe, and free!
But instead of get with the times, Meta threw a fit and greedily decided that instead of sharing profits, it would just block news articles from being shared on Facebook and Instagram in Canada.
Now, tens of thousands of Canadians are being told to evacuate.
Four firefighters have already died fighting the flames. And Meta continues to block vital information on its platforms.
Mark Zuckerberg and his entire team should be utterly ashamed.We must raise our voices together for the people of Canada.
Sign to demand Meta lift its news ban while people are fighting for their lives! 