Before C-18, the River Valley Sun — which distributes 6,000 free newspapers monthly — relied on Facebook to share content, instead of having its own website. No Meta deal in sightThe Online News Act sought to force web giants like Meta to compensate media outlets for the journalism shared on their platforms. And so that's part of a larger trend, said Aengus Bridgman, MEO's director and project lead on the Meta news ban. Neither MEO nor the Canadian Association of Journalists has tracked how many outlets have shut down following the Meta news ban. Blackburn said small, local outlets like hers that do the unglamorous work of covering local courts, town council meetings and events like parades are hurting out here.
