Australia site not banned, EAM Jaishankar’s comments freely viewed: Canada

Responding to a questionnaire from The Indian Express, in the first official reaction, Louis-Carl Brissette Lesage, Spokesperson, Media Relations, Global Affairs Canada, said Sunday: “Australia Today has never been banned in Canada. The news site and video of media comments by both India’s Foreign Minister (S) Jaishankar and Australia’s Foreign Minister (Penny) Wong, can be easily and freely viewed in Canada.”

Lesage added: “In Canada, Meta, which owns and operates Facebook and Instagram, blocked the sharing of news content on their sites, irrespective of the outlet. This is due to a decision by Meta to block news on its social media platforms in Canada since 2023. This is in line with a broader business strategy on Meta’s part to de-emphasize news on its platforms globally.”

On November 7, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had said he was “surprised” over the “strange” Canadian move of blocking content on social media and that the action “yet again highlights the hypocrisy of Canada towards freedom of speech”.

“We understand that the social media handles and pages of this particular outlet, which is an important diaspora outlet, have been blocked and are not available for viewers in Canada. This happened just an hour or a few hours after this particular handle carried the press conference of S Jaishankar along with Penny Wong, and the outlet also had several articles on the (Australia) visit of the External Affairs Minister, as also an interview of him. We were surprised. It looks strange to us,” he had said.

Responding to a question on the safety of diaspora in his interview to The Australia Today, Jaishankar had said, “Sometimes, you will have a few extremist people who will go and do something; it’s important that they are checked.”

“No country has a stronger commitment to freedom than India. But we always tell people freedoms are meant to be utilised, not misused.” In a veiled reference to Canada, he said, “Governments have the responsibility in this regard.”

Managing editor of The Australia Today Jitarth Jai Bharadwaj said the next day that the “ban” was “under orders from the Canadian government”.

The Australia Today also shared an image that said “people in Canada can’t see this content”. But the following sentence, which can be read on Facebook, states: “In response to Canadian government legislation, news content can’t be viewed in Canada.”

The legislation in question is Canada’s Online News Act of 2023 which requires online companies like Facebook and Google to compensate news publishers for use of their content.

Since the law came into force last year, Facebook has blocked access to all news content on its platform in Canada, as it does not wish to compensate news outlets, as outlined in the law.

When asked about this, Bharadwaj told The Indian Express Sunday that reports came in from their audience in Canada within hours of the Jaishankar interview being posted (on Tuesday).

“Prior to this, we had no issues with our content being accessible in Canada. Our concern stems from the timing of the restriction. Not a day earlier, not a day later, but within hours of the interview being posted which leads us to question whether this action was selectively enforced in response to the interview’s content,” Bharadwaj said.

The publication had shared an image that said “people in Canada can’t see this content”. The following line, available on the Facebook site, reads: “In response to Canadian government legislation, news content can’t be viewed in Canada.”

In Canberra, Jaishankar, in remarks on Canadian allegations against India over the killing of Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, had reiterated that Canada made the allegations without providing specifics.

He also said India believes in freedom and it should not be misused, and that India had brought this up with the Australian side. Jaiswal said, “So you can draw your conclusions from that, why The Australia Today channel was blocked by Canada.”

Meta and the Ministry of External Affairs did not respond to The Indian Express queries.

A help page on Facebook in Canada, which is mentioned on all news publishers’ pages whose content is unavailable states, “In response to Canada’s Online News Act, news content from Pages connected to a news outlet can no longer be viewed or shared in Canada”.

“If you are in Canada, this means: You can no longer share or view news links or content on Facebook, including news articles and audio-visual content posted by news outlets, and you can no longer see links or content from any news outlet Pages, even if you search for them or follow them,” the Facebook help page states.