The day that social media giant Meta had warned was coming has arrived.
The parent company of Facebook and Instagram has begun ending news availability on its platforms, in response to the federal government's Bill C-18.
"In order to comply with the Online News Act, we have begun the process of ending news availability in Canada," the company said in a blog post published on Tuesday. "These changes start today, and will be implemented for all people accessing Facebook and Instagram in Canada over the course of the next few weeks."
For Canadian news outlets, like WindsorNewsToday.ca, this means that the links to stories we put on our Facebook pages will not be seen by users in Canada.
According to Meta's blog post, people in Canada will no longer be able to view or share news content on Facebook and Instagram, including news articles and audio-visual content posted by news outlets.
We at Blackburn Media Inc. had hoped it would not come to this, however, we are hopeful that our loyal audience will continue to read the news articles we produce.
While links to our stories will no longer be accessible on Facebook, there are many ways in which readers can access our stories. Readers can go directly to WindsorNewsToday.ca to access the work our reporters do to cover the news and events in our communities. They can also sign up for our daily newsletter and have all of the day's news delivered straight to their inbox every morning.