New Delhi: In claiming that the social media handles of a website based in Australia had been “blocked by Canada” for reporting external affairs minister S. Jaishankar’s remarks in Canberra, the Ministry of External Affairs appears to have overlooked the fact that Meta blocks all news outlets for users in Canada – including mainstream North American ones – due to a dispute with the Canadian government over the sharing of advertising revenue.
At his weekly briefing on Thursday, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal was asked if it was “true that the social media pages of ‘The Australia Today’ , a prominent media outlet in Australia, have been banned in Canada.”
Jaiswal replied that the journalist asking the question “had heard correctly” and asserted that this blocking was a consequence of this platform publishing an interview with Jaishankar. He said that this had “yet again highlight[ed] the hypocrisy of Canada towards freedom of speech.”
Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Okay. So first, Siddhant, regarding your question about Canada blocking or banning Australia, the prominent outlet there, Australia Today… yes, you have heard it correctly. We have also seen that the… or we understand that the social media handles and pages of this particular outlet, which is an important diaspora outlet, has been blocked and are not available for viewers in Canada. This happened just an hour or so, a few hours after this particular handle carried the press conference of External Affairs Minister along with Penny Wong. And the particular media outlet also had several articles on the visit of the External Affairs Minister as also an interview of External Affairs Minister, so we were surprised. It looks strange to us.
But nevertheless, what I will say that these are actions which yet again highlight the hypocrisy of Canada towards freedom of speech. You would have said… you would have seen that EAM and his media engagement, interaction, he spoke about three things. One was Canada making allegations and a pattern has developed without any specific evidence. Second thing highlighted was that surveillance of Indian diplomats have been happening in Canada, which I ended up as unacceptable. And then third thing which he highlighted was the political space which is being given in Canada to anti-India elements. So you can draw your conclusions from that why Australia Today channel was blocked by Canada.
Incidentally, the three points on Canada that the MEA spokesperson noted Jaishankar had spoken about in his interview to Australia Today were also mentioned specifically by the Indian minister in his press conference with Australian foreign minister Penny Wong. These three-point concerns were widely reported by Indian outlets, including by The Wire.
While the MEA spokesperson did not identify which social media handles of ‘Australia Today’ were “blocked” by Canada, it is understood that they are the Instagram and Facebook pages of the website.
‘Australia Today’ , on its X account, posted a partial screenshot of its blocked Facebook page. A statement from its managing editor Jitarth Jai Bharadwaj expressed his “heartfelt gratitude to every #news outlet, #journalist, and #supporter who stood by us during a challenging time.”
He also directly accused the Canadian government of being behind the “recent restriction and ban.”
“The recent restriction and ban on our interview with Indian External Affairs Minister @DrSJaishankar and the press conference with Australian Foreign Minister @SenatorWong on #socialmedia, under orders from the Canadian government, have been difficult for our team and those who value free and open #journalism.”
Statement from The Australia Today:
We at @TheAusToday would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to every #news outlet, #journalist , and #supporter who stood by us during a challenging time. The recent restriction and ban on our interview with Indian External Affairs Minister… pic.twitter.com/53UTd5Le19Advertisement— The Australia Today (@TheAusToday) November 7, 2024
While ‘The Australia Today’ and the MEA claim that Canada has blocked the outlet, Meta’s own link on the block page indicates that Meta itself – not Canada – has restricted access to the outlet, along with all other worldwide news sites, for users in Canada since August 1, 2023.
A full screenshot of the blocked Facebook page would clarify the issue. When a user in Canada tries to open ‘The Australia Today ‘ Facebook page, they would likely see not the account’s post but a message starting with: “People in Canada can’t see this content.”
Just below this, although cropped out in the previous screenshot, the message continues: “In response to Canadian government legislation, news content can’t be viewed in Canada,” followed by “Learn more”, which links to another Facebook page .
The linked page – which is from Facebook’s newsroom page – is titled, “Changes to News Availability on Our Platforms in Canada”, which was last updated on August 1, 2023.
The first paragraph says:
“In order to comply with the Online News Act, we have begun the process of ending news availability in Canada. 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.”
Thereafter, it notes both for Canadian and international news outlets that news links and content will “no longer be viewable by people in Canada.”
Users in Canada who try to access The Australia Today’s Facebook (left) and Instagram (right) pages see these messages.
The Online News Act , also known as C-18 in Canada, was approved in June 2023 and sought to force IT giants like Meta and Google to pay news publishers and media outlets for the articles that were shared on their platforms.
The logic of the act was that the digital giants should share some of the ad revenue that had moved online with media outlets losing out from advertisers. The IT majors, however, pushed back and said that publishers voluntarily share their content on the platform to their benefit.
In November 2023, Google signed a deal with the Canadian government to distribute CA$100 million annually to news outlets, just three weeks before the Online News Act was going into force.
But Meta continues to resist and no news content is shared on its platforms for any user in Canada since August 1, 2023 .
Using a virtual private network geo-located to Canada to view pages of news outlets, including ‘The Australia Today’, on Instagram and Facebook reveals that the tech giant has blocked them for users in Canada, and a message saying this is in response to domestic legislation is visible.
But since ‘The Australia Today’ has said that its pages were blocked due to the orders of the Canadian government after Jaishankar’s interview, their publisher is effectively claiming that the pages were viewable to Canadians despite the Meta block, which has affected all other news outlets .
The same notice from Meta greets any internet user identified to be from Canada to the Instagram and Facebook pages of The New York Times and Canada’s own Globe and Mail newspaper.
Similarly, the Instagram and Facebook pages of India Today, NDTV and CNN-News 18 are also not viewable in Canada. All these news outlets reported on India calling out the Canadian government’s ‘block’ on ‘The Australia Today’ but had not mentioned that their own pages cannot be seen by any Canadian user.
It’s not just ‘The Australia Today’ – international outlets and even Canadian ones have their pages blocked on Meta platforms (in this collage are screenshots from Facebook).
The Wire ‘s Instagram and Facebook pages have also been blocked in Canada with the message from Meta platforms.
The Wire has sought comments from the MEA, the Canadian high commission and ‘The Australia Today’ . This article will be updated if there is any comment.
India is currently in the midst of a worsening diplomatic crisis with Canada that began in September last year.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had claimed that there were “credible” allegations that Indian government agents were behind the shooting of a Canadian national Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who had been proscribed as a Khalistani terrorist by India.
India had vehemently denied any involvement, taking a number of steps to express its anger at the Canadian accusation.
Last month, the Canadian government claimed that Indian diplomats, including high commissioner Sanjay Verma, were involved in a wider series of activities that targeted other Khalistani separatists based in Canada. India strongly denied the claim as preposterous and immediately with drew Verma and six other Indian diplomats, while expelling six Canadian diplomats at the same time for interfering in India’s internal affairs.
At a Canadian parliamentary hearing, Canada’s deputy foreign minister David Morisson even claimed that Indian home minister Amit Shah could have been involved. India dismissed his statements as absurd and summoned the acting Canadian deputy high commissioner to register a protest.
Thereafter, clashes outside a temple in Brampton, Ontario prompted expressions of concern about the welfare of the Indian community from the Indian leadership. Jaishankar also raised the issue during his press conference with the Australian foreign minister.
Postscript: ‘Australia Today’ now concedes the block was placed by Meta
In response to a questionnaire from The Wire sent prior to publication, the editor of ‘The Australia Today’ said on Sunday that it had first learned from readers in Canada that they were unable to access their Facebook page “only after the publication of our interview with Indian External affairs minister S Jaishankar.”
“Prior to this, we had not been made aware of any issues regarding our content not being accessible in Canada,” Jitarth Jai Bharadwaj, founding editor of ‘The Australia Today’ said in a message.
He further claimed that he had learned about the universal restrictions placed in Canada by Meta on news platforms only after publication of the interview. “We have been made aware of Meta’s policy to restrict access to news content in Canada as a response to domestic legislation only after the interview was aired. The restriction on our content appears to have been initiated specifically after the publication of Dr. Jaishankar’s interview,” he said.
Bharadwaj added that another Canadian news website, which it described as a “known Khalistan misinformation news outlet,” is still accessible on Facebook and Instagram. “Hence the logical conclusion would be that there seems to be selective enforcement of the policy.”
While The Wire was indeed able to access the Facebook page of Baaznews via a Canadian VPN – unlike any other news site FB page from around the world – it is possible that this is because Baaz is listed as an ‘Editorial/Opinion’ page on FB rather than a ‘News/Media Company’ page, like ‘The Australia Today’ and every other news platform currently blocked by Meta. On Instagram, however, BaazNews is listed as News/Media, and The Wire was able to access it on Sunday via a Canadian VPN, just as it was able to access the Instagram pages of other news sites too – unlike on Saturday, suggesting either spotty implementation of blocking by Meta or a caching issue .
Asked to clarify if ‘The Australia Today’ was suggesting that the Canadian government, rather than Meta, had initiated the block on its Facebook page, Bharadwaj said:
“The interview was blocked under the Government’s legislation (this is there in the screenshot). We are not suggesting that Mr Trudeau directly called someone to get this done but the content was restricted under Govt legislation. However, the selective nature of the restriction, raises questions about whether the enforcement of the block was influenced by the content of the interview and whether additional factors may have played a role.”
Incidentally, the screenshot of the blocked page states that the outlet was blocked “in response” to the government legislation rather than “under” it – implying protest rather than compliance. This message appears on both Facebook and Instagram for all news outlets accessible to Canadian users, whether domestic or international, as Meta began blocking access in opposition to Canadian legislation requiring payment to news publishers over a year ago.
In contrast, the message Meta posts when readers in India try to access the blocked BaazNews page is, ‘Account not available in India. ‘This is because we complied with a legal request to restrict this content’.
Bharadwaj acknowledged that “To date, ‘The Australia Today’ has not received any official notification or email from Meta regarding specific restrictions applied to our Facebook or Instagram pages. Typically, when restrictions are applied due to governmental requests, a formal notification is provided to the publisher.” But rather than granting this was because there was no specific restriction on his site but a generic Meta policy adopted in response to a government law requiring them to share revenue, he said that not receiving any such communication “adds to our concern about the sudden enforcement of this restriction.”
He added that his “goal is not to assign blame arbitrarily but rather to highlight what appears to be selective enforcement that has negatively impacted our ability to serve our audience.”
Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson – who directly blamed the Canadian government for blocking the site and who has since been made aware of Meta’s policy of blocking all news content in Canada – has not responded to The Wire’s request for a clarification of the Indian government’s stand.
Note: This story was updated on November 10, at 1703 hours, to incorporate the response of ‘The Australia Today’ to our questionnaire.
