MPs summon Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg to face questions on blocking news access
Global News
The move comes after the company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, announced it would block news in Canada if the Liberal government's Online News Act passes in its current form.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is being summoned by a parliamentary committee for the third time in four years — this time over the tech company’s threat to block news from Canadians on its social-media platforms.
The decision comes a week after the company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, announced it would block news if the Liberal government’s Online News Act passes in its current form.
The legislation, also known as Bill C-18, would require tech giants to pay Canadian media companies for linking to or otherwise repurposing their content online.
The House of Commons heritage committee agreed on Monday to summon Zuckerberg, the company’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, and the head of Meta Canada, Chris Saniga, to appear at an upcoming meeting.
It also agreed to request internal and external documents from Meta and from Google, which recently blocked news access for some Canadian users to test out a possible response to Bill C-18 _ with some critics calling the committee’s request a violation of privacy and a targeted “shakedown.”
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Zuckerberg has repeatedly ignored summons from Ottawa before, first in 2019 when an ethics committee was studying users’ privacy on social media platforms, and again in 2021 when the heritage committee was studying an Australian law similar to Bill C-18.
The House of Commons doesn’t have the power to summon individuals who live outside of Canada, but it can enforce the summons if they ever set foot in the country, a move that would be considered extremely rare.
