Here's how some student publications are finding ways to work around Meta news ban

Part of the struggle, Amy St Amand editor of The Nait Nugget said, is that students are unaware of the ban

Thai Sirikoone said The Griff is relying heavily on TikTok and creating a social culture on campus tied to the magazine. (Submitted by Thai Sirikoone)

Thai Sirikoone didn't think his university magazine's digital presence would be affected by Meta's news block until his colleagues showed him their Instagram feeds.

Meta is the media giant behind companies like Facebook and Instagram, which banned Canadian news on its platforms earlier this year. The move comes as a response to the federal government's Online News Act, also known as Bill C-18.

The bill requires tech companies to compensate Canadian news outlets for stories posted online.

But Meta's response has been hurting smaller publications as well. 

Sirikoone is editor-in-chief of MacEwan University's student-run publication The Griff. 

"We're kind of small potatoes – our niche audience is pretty small," he told CBC's Edmonton AM.

Like many student publications, The Griff uses social media to connect with students on campus. They are now relying heavily on TikTok and creating a social culture on campus tied to the magazine.

Amy St. Amand, editor-in-chief of The Nait Nugget student newspaper, said it's unfortunate that they are caught in the crossfire, despite not being included in the bill.

"We at The Nugget rely heavily on social media to connect with our audience," she said.

"Students like getting their news on Instagram and they're kind of coached to follow institutional Instagram to stay up-to-date."

St. Amand said The Nait Nugget applied for a review to unblock their accounts.

"But the appeal process doesn't give you a lot to go off of," she said. "There's no contact, there's no phone number. There's no expected timeline of when I might hear if we'll get unblocked."

While they are waiting for a response, St. Amand said her team is telling students where to find the campus paper. Part of the struggle, she said, is that students are unaware of the ban.

"A lot of them honestly don't know," she said. "They're just looking for things in the feed and maybe they don't even notice that."

Brittany Rudyck is the president of the First Alberta Campus Radio Association and a host on CJSR, Edmonton's only independent, volunteer-powered campus and community radio station at the University of Alberta.

Much like its digital counterparts, the station's social media accounts are also blocked to Canadians, despite having largely music programming.

"We don't necessarily share direct news through our channels," said Rudyck. "It's not the content of news programs, it's the program itself that we're trying to promote."

Sirikoone, with The Griff, said his team is rethinking its social media strategy for the year, after hiring a student whose sole job was to create digital content and build the magazine's online presence.

"The fun thing about Meta restricting how we can do our business is, in my mind, I think we're better off without them," he said.

"It's good for the culture to think about how we can come back on campus, and get out of the online bubble."

He said The Griff team didn't want to support any American company that doesn't want to pay for Canadian news.

"Why would we want to host the things that we work so hard on that connect with Canadian students to connect people in our community, when that platform that we're sharing on doesn't even care about us.”

Source: www.cbc.ca