OTTAWA: Media on Tuesday asked Canada's competition watchdog to investigate Meta's blocking of news articles on Facebook and Instagram, accusing the tech giant of using its dominance to gobble up online advertising money.
In a statement, industry associations News Media Canada and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, as well as public broadcaster CBC and its French language counterpart Radio-Canada, accused Meta of"anticompetitive conduct" and"abuse of its dominant position" in the online advertising market. They asked the Competition Bureau to prohibit Meta from continuing to block Canadians' access to news and pressed Meta to"refrain from discriminating, by algorithm or by any other means, against content from Canadian news organizations."