If the idea that the news wouldn’t come to you as it happens sounds unnerving, then you’re not alone. But that seems to be what’s happening at Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), who’s planning to limit the availability of news on its apps in Canada.
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A piece of Canadian legislation, known as the Online News Act, would largely forbid the practice of quietly posting news outlets’ articles on their platforms and would instead require the social media posting the articles to pay for them instead. Naturally, that’s left Meta holding a potentially very large bag, and now, Meta is a little more wary of doing business in Canada.
The mutual enmity seemed clear during a hearing by the Canada Heritage Committee. A topic that featured a speech from Meta’s Nick Clegg was originally titled: “The Response of Companies in the Information Technology Sector to Bill C-18.” Nice and innocuous, right? Well, eventually, that title changed to “Tech Giants’ Current and Ongoing Use of Intimidation and Subversion Tactics to Evade Regulation in Canada and Across the World.”
That’s when Clegg pulled out of the speech. It’s not just Canada, either; Meta may be pulling news out from under Californians, too. California advanced a similar bill to Canada’s, this time called the “California Journalism Preservation Act.”
News strangulation aside, Meta is still heavily analyst-supported. In fact, analyst consensus calls it a Strong Buy thanks to 39 Buy ratings, four Holds, and two Sells. With an average price target of $284.19, Meta stock comes with 4.02% upside potential.
