This is bad news, because now there’s more evidence that Facebook allowing news sharing can be argued as a free-of-charge service providing social value, which weakens the claim that Meta owes news orgs anything.

Congrats to CBC for their journalistic integrity by reporting on information against their interest I guess. I imagine their angle is to shame Meta for the degradation of news sharing, but I’m sure they know the other angle is equally obvious.

I still think the link tax should happen though. Canada should be bolder in their legislation: pay for the links or remove the service altogether instead of hiding just news. As of today, Meta is still making millions from our eyeballs with ads and that’s what matters to them.