Why advertisers in Canada are pulling out of Instagram and Facebook

Canadian advertisers are leaving Meta to boycott the company’s ban on news posts.

Stingray Group announced on Tuesday that it will “immediately suspend” all advertising on Facebook and Instagram in Canada. Stingray, which is a Montreal-based music and video content company, said the move is in response to Meta blocking news content in Canada.

“We cannot tolerate Meta’s recent decision to block news from Canadian news media publishers and their potential implications for Canadian news content,” Eric Boyko, co-founder and chief executive officer of Stingray, told MarketWatch. “As a result, we have decided to pause our advertising on Facebook and Instagram.”

Stingray is just the most recent company in Canada to pull advertising from Meta. It follows the British Columbia government, the Canadian federal government, the Quebec and Ottawa governments, and other governments in Canada that also pulled advertising from Meta. Quebec worker’s union also suspended all advertising, along with Canadian telecoms operator Quebecor and Cogeco, which runs radio stations in Quebec, according to Reuters. 

Meta’s decision to remove news from its platforms is in response to Canada’s Online News Act, which passed through Canada’s Parliament in June. The act requires tech giants like Meta and Google to pay Canadian news outlets for the content those outlets put on Meta’s platforms. News was officially removed from Facebook and Instagram in Canada on August 1.