Facebook blocks grieving families from sharing obituaries as Online News Act dispute rages on

Hayley Wilson got some heartbreaking news in August. Her beloved grandmother passed away at the age of 81 after living a long and fruitful life. Phyllis Jeannie Lindsay was known as a “social butterfly” who loved sports, family, gardening, and life.

When she passed, Wilson and the rest of her family, wrote up an obituary and sent it into the Hamilton Spectator, which posted it to their obituary section on the newspaper’s website.

Wilson, caught up in her own grief, wanted to let her friends know about the loss but could not call them all so she tried to share the obituary on Facebook. She was met with a message stating, “In response to Canadian government legislation, news content cannot be shared.”

That legislation is the recently-passed Online News Act, which will require tech giants like Google, Facebook and Instagram to pay news organizations for content that is shared or otherwise repurposed on their platforms. In response to the bill, Meta removed news from its social platforms Facebook and Instagram.

But Wilson asked, “Is an obituary a news story? That doesn’t seem right.”

John Cunningham, president of the Ontario Funerals Services Association agrees. “A lot of families are starting to become aware of this problem and it is a problem.”

Cunningham says people who are grieving shouldn’t be given obstacles when wanting to share stories or obituaries of their loved ones.

“It’s 2023, social media is a very common and official way of getting the word out there that someone has passed,” he said. “It allows their friends to connect with them at what very well maybe the worst time of their lives.”

“A lot of families are starting to become aware of this problem and it is a problem.”

Cunningham, who’s also a funeral director in Peterborough, now has to alert families of the issue and has a workaround.

“Many but not all funeral homes post obituaries to their own website,” he said. “Because we are a non-Canadian news source, those obituaries can be shared on sites like Facebook and Instagram.”

Meta did not respond to our request when we asked why obituaries are treated as news content.

Meta’s dispute with federal government over Online News Act

Talks with the company and the federal government have stalled and Meta’s hardline approach hasn’t changed.

“Unlike search engines, we do not proactively pull news from the internet to place in our users’ feeds and we have long been clear that the only way we can reasonably comply with the Online News Act is by ending news availability for people in Canada.”

But the federal government says the bargaining table is still open and welcomes discussion with the tech giant.

“Unfortunately, Meta continues to completely abdicate any responsibility towards democratic institutions and even stability,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said, “but we’re going to continue to work positively in those areas.”

Companies will fall under the Act if they have platforms that receive more than 20 million unique Canadian visitors a month and have a global revenue of more than $1 billion. Facebook and Google are currently the only platforms that meet the requirements.

In late November, the federal government announced it reached a deal with Google.

The agreement will see Canadian news continue to be shared on Google’s platforms. In return, the company would make annual payments to news companies in the range of $100 million.

The Online News Act is set to go into effect on Dec. 19.

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