Amid row, Australian news portal clarifies ‘ban’ on its social media handles was by Meta, not Canada
Ottawa on Sunday said that Meta blocks all news content for users in Canada, not just ‘The Australia Today’.
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An Australian news website at the centre of a controversy between New Delhi and Ottawa clarified on Monday that it did not receive any notification from social media conglomerate Meta specifically banning its Facebook and Instagram pages in Canada.
On November 7, a spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry had incorrectly claimed that Canada had blocked the social media handles of the website, The Australia Today. The spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, appeared to have been referring to the Facebook account of the website.
The Australia Today also claimed on November 8 that the purported ban on the website’s social media handles had been implemented “under orders from the Canadian government”.
However, in reality, Meta – the parent company of social media websites Facebook and Instagram – blocks all news outlets for users in Canada, not just The Australia Today. This is because the conglomerate objects to Canada’s Online News Act, which requires tech giants to pay news outlets for articles shared on their platforms.
Jitarth Jai Bharadwaj, the managing editor of The Australia Today, claimed on Monday that the news portal was “made aware” of the law only after it published an interview with India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
“Considering that another news outlet, known for its alleged anti-India reporting and Khalistan propaganda, remains accessible on both Facebook and Instagram in Canada, our logical...
