Facebook has officially closed its news tab in Australia, as its parent company Meta - which also owns Instagram - considers completely banning news content completely in Australia.

That's already happened in Canada, where news organisations saw huge declines in online audiences and readers were instead flooded with memes.

In an age where individuals, especially youth, are chronically online, online safety policies are more important than ever. We sat down with past Net Good Grant recipient, the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University, to hear how they’re helping build a trusted internet in Canada.

The U.S. is inching closer to a potential ban on the popular app. What would it mean if Canada followed suit?

It’s been nearly impossible to scroll past the scrutiny of social media giants this past week, after the United States House of Representatives passed a bill that could lead to a ban of TikTok – with Canada now assessing its own review of the app. The social sphere shakeup comes on the backdrop of new online safety legislation and a royal photo bomb that's raising big questions about disinformation online. Piya Chattopadhyay is joined by WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs; Taylor Owen, director of McGill University's Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy; and Philip Mai, co-director of Toronto Metropolitan University's Social Media Lab for their analysis on it all.

Between Canada's Online News Act, Donald Trump's recent indictment tied to the Jan.6 riots and increasing worries over harm, our relationship with social media and big tech companies is more complicated than ever. Frances Haugen, the former Facebook employee who blew the whistle on the company by disclosing thousands of internal documents joins Zandbergen to talk about the standoff between Meta and the Canadian government over Bill C-18 and what she think needs to happen to hold big tech to account.

Pascale St-Onge is taking on an already hot file, meanwhile, ‘waiting in the wings' is one of the most controversial pieces of internet regulation legislation, says Michael Geist.

The Public Policy Forum today released a new report on polarization in Canada that makes the case that the country is not immune to the corrosive forces sweeping democracies worldwide.  

Our competition authorities have focused too narrowly on economic factors, neglecting the importance of editorial diversity.

The Online News Act (Bill C-18) is now law, and absolutely everyone has described it poorly and created confusion about what it's actually all about. I talk with McGill University's Taylor Owen about the aims of the legislation and how we should be thinking of it. Let's talk #cdnpoli.

An academic has analysed Google and Facebook's payments to news publishers.

In its first direct response to threats from big tech platforms promising to retaliate against the Liberals’ controversial online news law, the federal government announced Wednesday it would halt all advertising on Meta’s Facebook and Instagram.

“The whole world is looking at Canada right now,” says Michaël Nguyen, president of Quebec’s Professional Federation of Journalists, as several Canadian governments decided to pull their ads from Meta platforms on Wednesday. Diona Macalinga reports.

Supriya Dwivedi discusses the latest moves by Canada to put pressure on Meta and Google in the standoff over C-18.

In 2021 she shone a light on misinformation and online harm. Now she’s “extremely worried” about Big Tech’s impact on the 2024 US election.

The Liberals can solve the ongoing impasse with Meta and Google by making the Big Tech platforms pay into a fund for news outlets, Konrad von Finckenstein says

Big changes could be coming to the way Google and Meta let you access news on their platforms. We provide answers to the big questions around the decisions.

Move by the search giant comes in response to Ottawa's efforts to support Canadian media, which has struggled to survive after ad revenue moved to the tech giants.

The government’s online news legislation became law this week likely setting off a summer-long staring contest between two tech titans and Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez.

This episode of Hub Dialogues features Sean Speer in conversation with Taylor Owen, a McGill University professor and leading scholar on the media, internet and public policy, about Bill C-18 (the Online News Act) as well as broader policy trends with respect to the internet, social media, and how we access and consume information.

The Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill’s Max Bell School of Public Policy is helping to shape the debate about the governance of online platforms