Like many in Canada’s Northwest Territories, Poul Osted has been relying on social media to keep in touch with loved ones as they scramble to evacuate from nearby wildfires.
But Mr Osted said he has been left frustrated by his inability to share news articles on Facebook during the active emergency situation, due to Meta’s ban on news content for Canadian users.
“Instead we have to screenshot parts of a news story and post that as a picture,” Mr Osted told the BBC.
“Oftentimes this means you don’t get the whole story, or have to go searching the web for verification.”
Mr Osted, who lives in the small hamlet of Fort Resolution, said this has affected his family members who were forced to flee Hay River, which is threatened by a wildfire is burning nearby.
“The state of the highway system is one example,” he told the BBC via Facebook messenger.
Several people were inquiring on the platform whether it was safe to drive out of town but couldn’t share that information on the social network.
Meta – which owns Facebook and Instagram – began blocking access to news for its Canadian users on 1 August, not long after Canada’s parliament passed an online news bill that will require platforms like Google and Meta to negotiate deals with news publishers for content.
It has called the law “fundamentally flawed legislation that ignores the realities of how our platforms work”.
As Meta rolls out the ban as part of its campaign against the legislation, a growing number of Canadian users have found themselves unable to view news shared by media organisations on its platforms.
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