During a recent storm that knocked out power, caused wide-spread property damage and brought down hundreds of trees locally, the public wasn’t able to rely on local news outlets to pass on information via their Facebook pages—and that’s a problem.
At Monday night’s Chatham-Kent council meeting, Chatham-Kent’s fire chief Chris Case said with Meta recently blocking local news outlets from using the Facebook social media platform to pass on information about local emergencies, the municipality will review how best to communicate to the public during weather emergencies.
Normally, a media release is sent to local news outlets, and it’s passed on to the public via their social media accounts on Facebook, where Case said it finds a large audience.
“That doesn’t happen at the moment and we are beginning to see that’s an issue,” Case said, noting it’s a challenge.
Media outlets across the country have had their Facebook accounts shut down with no ability to share information, regardless of whether it is news, content sharing, or online contests.
Case said they are reviewing their emergency management practices, of which communication is a key part.
All Facebook and Instagram users in Canada haven’t been able to access news on those platforms for the past few weeks, due to the federal government passing its Online News Act, Bill C-18, in June.
