Loss of Facebook for sharing stories a blow to small N.B. news outlets, communities

Small-town news organizations in New Brunswick are concerned about how they will connect with local communities following Meta's decision to remove Canadian news from its social media platforms.

Not only do they largely rely on social media platforms to build an active following, but they also depend on them for staying informed about news in their area.

Theresa Blackburn, co-founder of the River Valley Sun newspaper based in Woodstock, says the free publication, which started in 2019, has been helped by social media. 

"We started the paper with nothing, and we started basically from scratch, and because Facebook was free it was wonderful," Blackburn said Thursday.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has been signalling a news ban after the government passed its Online News Act in June.

The law requires big tech giants like Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content they share or otherwise repurpose on their platforms.

Meta has already begun shutting down Canadian news, leaving smaller news outlets scrambling to find an alternative strategy to stay connected with their audience.

Facebook "allowed us to disseminate information, to have a platform for no real cost and to get everything out there," Blackburn said.

And now she worries that both River Valley Sun and its subscribers will suffer as Meta begins shutting down news on its platforms.

"Ultra-local news is actually doing something good in the community and having the inability to disseminate that to the greater public and to reach as many people as possible hurts us."

A lose-lose game

CHCO-TV is a community cable channel that is already struggling to expand its reach beyond the Charlotte County region to other small towns across southwestern New Brunswick.

That's why it uses Facebook to connect with about 28,000 followers who may not have access to the actual channel on the Rogers system.

Reporter Vicky Hogarth, the news director of CHCO-TV, worries the station will lose its target audience, while local communities lose access to current affairs and information about events.

"I got the first phone call today from someone in Fredericton who said, 'I can't see you on Facebook anymore,'" said Hogarth. "So I said, 'Can you go on the page and tell me the last post you see?' And he saw one from a couple days ago and then before that he went back six months."

"Fifty per cent of Canadians are already … subject to being blocked from Canadian content on their platforms, so I am a little terrified about what's to come down the line."