maaxx.ca

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Meta (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram) blocks news content in Canada starting this month. The move follows the enactment of regulations requiring platform providers to pay content commissions to media companies.

It turns out, however, that blocking has no effect on the use of Facebook. At least that’s what data from two independent analytics companies, Similarweb and Data.ai, suggests.

Facebook’s daily active users (DAU) and test duration in Canada have not changed significantly since Meta put the block, as quoted by Reuters, Wednesday (8/30/2023).

Facebook’s DAU in Canada was still hovering around $5 million at the end of August, according to data from Similarweb. The chart shows stability since the previous month.

The time spent was still an average of 40 minutes per day from the end of July to the end of August.

This report seems to confirm Meta’s claim some time ago. Facebook’s parent company says news content doesn’t have a big impact on traffic to its platform.

For this reason, Meta considers that the obligation to pay media companies for information content does not make commercial sense. Meta declined to comment on data compiled by Reuters from Similarweb and Data.ai.

A Canadian government regulation called the “Online News Act” was signed last June. Platforms such as Meta and Google are asked to pay compensation to Canadian media companies each time their content is distributed on these Internet services.

Meta and Google rejected the rule because it was considered inconsistent with their business. Specifically, Meta claims that article links make up less than 3% of all content on Facebook. In other words, the dissemination of information has no economic value.

For information, the rules that Canada implements are also under discussion in Indonesia. On National News Day, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said one of his priorities was regulating publishers’ rights, which forces Google, Facebook and others to pay media companies for news.

The drafting of these regulations in Indonesia is still being further studied by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Kominfo), independent institutions and platform providers. We’ll just wait for the sequel.

(fabulous/fabulous)