(Montreal) A dozen major media outlets in Quebec and New Brunswick, including Le Devoir, the six major regional dailies and L’Acadie Nouvelle, are launching fake news in order to trap Internet users and make them understand the danger that these -these represent in the Meta universe, which blocks credible and verified information in Canada.
Internet users can therefore expect to see sensational headlines appearing on Facebook and Instagram claiming, for example, that Elon Musk was seen in a regional canteen discussing with the Minister of the Economy Pierre Fitzgibbon or even that Guy A. Lepage is throws in frozen pizza.
These headlines and their layout capitalize “on the curiosity and voyeurism that lie dormant in each of us,” to use the expression of the participating media.
They imitate misinformation sites, with the difference that Internet users who click on the links will be directed to the site alasource.info where videos hosted by journalists Noémi Mercier and Pierre Bruneau will explain to them in a fairly direct and irreverent that this type of completely false information is currently the only one that has the right to be cited on Meta platforms. They will then invite the Internet user to bypass these platforms and obtain information directly from known media.
Meta has decided to block all information content in Canada in order to avoid the federal bill which would require it to pay royalties to media for the retransmission of their content.
The general director of Coops de l’info, Geneviève Rossier, considers it essential to “raise public awareness of the fact that the blocking of news by Meta weakens our media, and by extension our identities, our language and our democratic institutions.”
In a manifesto published Thursday, the grouping asserts that Meta’s blocking of news “goes against the very foundations of press freedom and access to information.” Invoking the media crisis, the existence of which is certainly undeniable in light of the massive layoffs which have multiplied in recent months, they argue that “before the blockage, Facebook and Instagram constituted major levers for the highlighting our content”.
They point out that, according to a recent survey by the Center for Media Studies, 44% of Quebecers, and 70% in the 18-34 age group, considered Facebook and Instagram as important sources of information. “This concerns a significant number of Quebecers and French-speakers from the Atlantic, and more particularly representatives of the rising generations, for whom their habits of consulting information have been shaken up. There is cause for alarm,” they write.
The media group includes Le Devoir, L’nouvelle, Les Coops de l’info (Le Soleil, Le Droit, Le Nouvelliste, La Tribune, Le Quotidien, La Voix de l’Est and Les As de l’info), Les Business, URBANIA and L’Acadie Nouvelle.
The video is accompanied by links to subscribe to the newsletters of the media in question.