Some Canadian Armed Forces news publications social media pages on Aug. 8, have already been affected by nation wide news blockages announced by Meta. Facebook pages of affected accounts show with no posts .The Shilo Stag account remains active as of Aug. 8. Photo K-J Millar/Shilo Stag.

K-J Millar, Editor
Shilo Stag

As your new editor of the Shilo Stag I want to take the opportunity over the next few months to get to know you better and have you get to know me as well.

As with any transition, there will always be things that go smoothly and others that prove to be more of a challenge. I want to address some changes you may see in the upcoming days and months. Some of these changes will be spearheaded internally and yet others may be from external sources out of our control.

We want the Shilo Stag to be your leading source for solid journalistic stories and communication, as it has been since 1947. Since the first printing of the newspaper, it has developed under the guidance of several editors, with the creativity of journalists and metamorphosed with different looks. It flourished after the birth of the internet and the viral spread of social media platforms. We intend to continue providing news, bringing forward momentum in ways you find convenient and easy to access.

But, it hasn’t been without challenges.

For years now, it has been a standard practice for many organizations not just to have a website or a news site but use social media to share stories and information.

However, today, many editors of news organizations turned on their computers to find Meta/Facebook had blocked their social media pages which now prohibit readers from gaining access to posts and information. This action directly responds to the Canadian Government passing Bill C-18, The Online News Act, on June 23, 2023. This bill was introduced to address the existing imbalance between news providers and tech companies regarding revenues.

On Aug. 1, Meta announced it would be deleting news on its Facebook and Instagram platforms for all Canadian users. The company said this action will take place during the next few weeks.

Just a few days before, on July 29, Google also released that it would remove news links to Canadian platforms by the end of the year, including Google News, Google Discover and Google News Showcase.

What this means for you, as Shilo Stag readers, is that in upcoming days or weeks, you may also wake up to find you no longer have access to posts on our social media site – just as some of our Canadian Forces sister publications found this morning (Aug. 8).

With more than 7,000 users on our social media we strongly encourage you to bookmark the Shilo Stag news site and share the link with your friends and family now so your rights to obtain news and information are not hindered. Stay in touch with your number-one source for Army and community news and information in Manitoba by saving and sharing www.shilostag.ca.

Advertising revenue is the lifeblood of news publications. Newspapers and media organizations have been suffering from revenue malnutrition with the vital sustenance of advertising dollars migrating to Facebook and Google for more than a decade, leaving struggles and media closures in its wake.

The new law requires tech giants like Meta and Google to compensate Canadian news organizations for content appearing on their platforms. While the Liberal Government argued the new law helps the Canadian news industry, which has seen a tremendous decline in advertising revenue for many years, the tech giants highly criticize the bill.

The Federal Government estimates Bill C-18 will inject a much-needed cash boost to the Canadian news industry of more than $329 million as the new law permits news organizations to enter into private deals with tech companies for negotiated compensation.

Meta, Google and Apple have already partnered with some news publishers to pay for the rights to their news articles, but not others.

The Canadian Government’s intent was to steer the tech monoliths into fostering agreements with news agencies for posting and linking to their staff’s efforts – fair compensation for fair work. When Meta announced it would block news, the Canadian Government said it would stop advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Some media agencies have followed suit to pull advertising from these platforms.

There is a lot of back-and-forth commentary between both sides of the argument, with Facebook and Meta making many suggestions to amend the bill. However, the precedent was set last year in Australia when a similar thing happened. Facebook temporarily blocked news feeds from international, domestic publications wiping out government sites and charities.

While we don’t know when or if these media blocks will affect the Shilo Stag, we believe it’s important to provide our readers with up-to-date knowledge of the situation. We want to enlist your community support as neighbours to keep news and information available at your fingertips. We encourage you to bookmark and share www.shilostag.ca today.