Hi, everyone. The question is pretty much as I’ve stated it in the header. I thought IMHO was the best place for this, but Mods, please move to whichever forum you feel is most appropriate.
Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has a policy in place that bans Canadians from sharing links to news sites. It doesn’t matter the source - CBC, The National Post, The Globe and Mail, CNN, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Corriere della Sera - if it’s a news link, we can’t share it.
This is over legislation proposed, debated, and passed by the Canadian government. I recognize that other people may have different opinions about the fairness of that legislation, but that’s not germane to my question.
It angers me greatly, I have chosen not to advertise with Meta anymore, but I’m trying to find some way to make my opinion and my action known to someone other than a bot.
This is about Bill 18-C, right? It sounds like your grievance is with the Canadian government, not with Meta. What is it that you want Meta to do, without breaking the law?
As I said in the OP, I recognize that other people have different opinions on the legislation. I really don’t want to get drawn into a debate about Bill 18-C - I fully support it, so I have no grievance with the Canadian government. What I want Meta to do is to accept that the Canadian government has the right to regulate them, and pay their fair share.
However, what I’m really looking for is people’s opinions on how best to express my support for the Canadian government’s position to Meta.
On edit - I’m also embarrassed to find this is in MPSIMS instead of IMHO. Oops!
I don’t think Meta hasn’t accepted that Canada has the right to regulate them - but when the regulation is " if you allow users to post links to news sites you must pay" , then not allowing the links to be posted is complying with the regulation.
As far as effective , if this is true
Meta appears to have assessed its users’ habits correctly. According to an independent study commissioned by the Reuters news agency shortly after the ban was imposed, the action had almost no immediate impact on usage of Facebook by Canadians.
“Daily active users of Facebook and time spent on the app in Canada have stayed roughly unchanged since parent company Meta started blocking news there at the start of August,” Reuters reported, citing data shared by Similarweb, a digital analytics company.
What is Meta doing that isn’t in accordance with the government’s position? If links to news outlets are so harmful that Canada needed a new law to force Meta to pay to remediate the harm caused by those links, surely it’s a great success if the links go away.
Pretend that the SDMB had some policy that you disagreed with. And pretend that you disagreed with it strongly enough that you wanted to express your opinion, possibly in order to get the policy changed; at very least, in order to make your voice heard. Now, if you posted something asking the advice of Dopers, you would likely be hoping to hear how you might raise your issue with the Mods of the forum in question, or how perhaps you should post your issue in the ‘About This Message Board’ forum. Perhaps someone would suggest a thread in the BBQ Pit in order to vent about your issue. Perhaps someone would have other useful suggestions that I haven’t thought of…
Well, that’s how it is with my question. I’m hoping that someone might have some experience with making a complaint about policy to Facebook/Instagram/Meta. If there is such a poster here, I’d appreciate learning how best to go forward from them.
As I hoped to make clear in the OP and post #3, I’m really not interested in debating the circumstances that have led to me wanting to complain. I’m not interested in other people’s opinions of the legitimacy or efficacy of my complaint, I’m not interested in learning whether you support the Canadian government’s legislation, or Meta’s response to it. I don’t care if millions, thousands, hundreds, or no other Canadians are as angry about this issue as I am.
All I really want in this thread is an answer to my question, if anyone has one - how can I make my opinion known to Meta?
Meta is a company, not a person. So which of these people do you expect to be able to persuade that they are wrong and you are right about how they run their company? Is it Zuckerberg?
The law is intended to provide the news media that Facebook is profiting off of a slice of the revenue. The only companies large enough to be required to pay are Google and Meta, Microsoft is a distant third but will cross the threshold eventually.
So far Google blinked and cut an acceptable deal with the Feds, Meta will not play ball.
Looks like Nick Clegg is the go-to for all matters regulatory and legislative. Unfortunately, you’ll notice there’s no email address for him, nor does it even link to his own Facebook page. Fortunately, he does have a public FB page, so here you go.
That is the argument, but I would point out that Facebook doesn’t profit off of links. Putting links on Facebook gets people to click on them, and gives companies profits.
Google is even worse, since it literally is functioning as a search engine, meaning people actually only find the news through Google in the first place.
It’s telling they only go after big companies, too, if it really was harming them enough they need the companies to pay them.
People posting links on Facebook - and the resulting arguments - are the free content that is Facebook. Regardless, it’s the law of the land up here and FB can either allow the links and pay up or don’t.
If you used to advertise with them and stopped immediately after their policy change, you’ve already sent the most effective complaint you’re capable of sending.