Meta has begun the process of cutting off news availability to Canadians on Facebook and Instagram.

In June, Canada’s Parliament passed the Online News Act, forcing Big Tech companies to negotiate compensation deals with news organizations for all content published on their platforms, a move that led Meta to ban the sharing of news on its platforms.

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Meta spokesperson Andy Stone blasted the new law on Tuesday, saying Canadians would soon begin seeing the changes.

“Today we’ve begun the process of ending news availability in Canada. Changes will roll out over a few weeks,” Stone posted on X, Elon Musk's company formerly known as Twitter. “As we’ve always said, the law is based on a fundamentally flawed premise. And, regrettably, the only way we can reasonably comply is to end news availability in Canada.”

In deciding to block news availability, Meta is following through on its promise to fight against the Canadian law.

Despite Meta’s opposition, Canada’s leadership has defended the Online News Act.

"If the Government can’t stand up for Canadians against tech giants, who will?” Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez wrote in an email to the National Post.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also slammed Meta’s decision, telling Business Today that it was “deeply irresponsible and out of touch,“ and “dangerous to our democracy, to our economy.”

Google also said that it will pull news content from its search engine in Canada.

"We're disappointed it has come to this. We don't take this decision or its impacts lightly and believe it's important to be transparent with Canadian publishers and our users as early as possible,” Kent Walker, the president of global affairs at Google and Alphabet, told CBC. "The unprecedented decision to put a price on links (a so-called 'link tax') creates uncertainty for our products and exposes us to uncapped financial liability simply for facilitating Canadians' access to news from Canadian publishers."

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The United States Congress has also considered similar legislation in the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act. The bill was pushed through the Senate Judiciary Committee last term but failed to pass due to disagreements about amendments. The bill was recently passed by committee and is waiting to be considered by the Senate. It is expected to run into resistance in the House, as Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) emphasized that the bill would be "dead on the floor."

Meta has also made similar threats over the JCPA.