There is a push for Canadians to boycott Facebook and Instagram for two days this week.

An advocacy group called Friends of Canadian Broadcasting are asking us to stop posting content on Meta’s platforms Wednesday August 23rd and Thursday August 24th.

Sarah Andrews is with Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and told The Morning Zoom with Sam and Jane, you could take it one step further to make a bigger difference.

“I would encourage people, if they’re able to, to completely stay off Facebook and Instagram because I’m sure many people know what brings money to Facebook and Instagram is our eyeballs,” Andrews explained, “The fact that we’re on the platform clicking, reading posts, that’s what triggers their algorithims to get ad dollars to the platforms. So if people are able to stay off for 2 days, that’s an ideal situation.”

She says support local news instead, exactly what we offer here on Zoomer Radio and Classical FM.

New Canadian legislation (Online News Act) requires Meta and Google to make deals with news publishers whose work they link to or repurpose on their platforms to compensate them for their work.

Meta has shown an unwillingness to cooperate on a potential deal, deciding instead to remove news content from Facebook and Instagram in Canada.