Tech
Blocked: No more news for Canadian's on Facebook & Instagram

Blocked: No more news for Canadian's on Facebook & Instagram

David Crowther

Blocked

‍‍Meta is planning to follow through on threats to block Canadians from sharing any news on Facebook and Instagram, after the country’s Senate passed a law requiring social media platforms pay news outlets to share their stories.

The new law, known as the Online News Act, intends to create a more level playing field between big tech and the publishing industry — forcing search engines and social media platforms to engage in some kind of negotiation for licensing news content.

‍Drop the news, it's cleaner

‍Although not quite the news portal it once was, Facebook is still the most common social media site to go to for information. 28% of people in a recent survey by the Reuters Institute said they had used the platform for news in the last week, more than YouTube (20%), Twitter (11%), and Meta's other property, Instagram (14%).

Canada, however, isn’t the first country to entertain this kind of legislation. In 2021, Meta blocked news from its platform in Australia after the country passed a similar law — eventually leading to deals between major publishers and the site.

‍Related reading: Keep an eye out on Sunday for our latest deep dive into digital media.

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Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams and banned goods, Reuters reports

Meta has been making billions of dollars per year from scam ads and sales of banned goods, according internal Meta documents seen by Reuters.

The new report quantifies the scale of fraud taking place on Meta’s platforms, and how much the company profited from them.

Per the report, Meta internal projections from late last year said that 10% of the company’s total 2024 revenue would come from scammy ads and sales of banned goods — which works out to $16 billion.

Discussions within Meta acknowledged the steep fines likely to be levied against the company for not stopping the fraudulent behavior on its platforms, and the company prioritized enforcement in regions where the penalties would be steepest, the reporting found. The cost of lost revenue from clamping down on the scams was weighed against the cost of fines from regulators.

The documents reportedly show that Meta did aim to significantly reduce the fraudulent behavior, but cuts to its moderation team left the vast majority of user-reported violations to be ignored or rejected.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters the documents were a “selective view” of internal enforcement:

“We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it, and we don’t want it either.”

Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show

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Per the report, Meta internal projections from late last year said that 10% of the company’s total 2024 revenue would come from scammy ads and sales of banned goods — which works out to $16 billion.

Discussions within Meta acknowledged the steep fines likely to be levied against the company for not stopping the fraudulent behavior on its platforms, and the company prioritized enforcement in regions where the penalties would be steepest, the reporting found. The cost of lost revenue from clamping down on the scams was weighed against the cost of fines from regulators.

The documents reportedly show that Meta did aim to significantly reduce the fraudulent behavior, but cuts to its moderation team left the vast majority of user-reported violations to be ignored or rejected.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters the documents were a “selective view” of internal enforcement:

“We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it, and we don’t want it either.”

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Google wants to invest even more money into Anthropic, with the search giant in talks for a new funding round that could value the AI startup at $350 billion, Business Insider reports. That’s about double its valuation from two months ago, but still shy of competitor OpenAI’s $500 billion valuation.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, Business Insider said the new deal “could also take the form of a strategic investment where Google provides additional cloud computing services to Anthropic, a convertible note, or a priced funding round early next year.”

In October, Google, which has a 14% stake in Anthropic, announced that it had inked a deal worth “tens of billions” for Anthropic to access Google’s AI compute to train and serve its Claude model.

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