Meta Turns Off The News, & California cartoons!

An animation about Facebook's latest evil doings • Un-burying my cartoons...

You may have seen the sneak peek/listen earlier, now I've got more background information for you in this post...

Amid record-breaking wildfires in Canada, it’s important to get potentially life-saving information out as quickly as possible, right?

Not if you’re Meta, the technology giant behind Facebook and Instagram.

In Canada, Meta blocked local and national news instead of compensate media outlets whose content appears on its social media platforms.

After Canada passed the Online News Act — which would force tech companies to negotiate payments to media outlets that make up much of the “content” on social networks — Meta threw a fit and decided to turn off the news instead of comply.

In ordinary circumstances, that would be a terribly ham-fisted move sure to anger people who use Facebook and Instagram.

With wildfires raging and evacuation orders impacting multiple Canadian provinces, Meta’s hissy fit could actually kill people. (It wouldn’t be the first time Facebook killed people.)

Meta says not to worry, they’ll generously still let you visit government websites to find wildfire information.

The important thing to remember is, like it or not, many people use social media as their primary window to news and information.

It sure seems like a dumb (and intentionally cruel) idea to close that window as deadly wildfires breathe down people’s necks.

Unfortunately, we’re likely to see more news blocks and brinkmanship by Meta as places like California consider similar legislation.

The one silver lining may be that people could realize that bypassing Facebook all the time may not be such a bad thing after all.

And as I’ve said before, the evils of Meta/Facebook really make me appreciate what we’ve got going here. 😁

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In other news (besides Donald Trump surrendering in Georgia and getting his mug shot taken), I wanted to share some other cartoons with you.

You can see loads of my California cartoons, most of which I created while working with KQED, here on a section I just added to my website.

Unfortunately, KQED generally did a great job of burying my work once it appeared for a millisecond on social media.

There are some really talented journalists there, but it’s not a good place for cartooning.

Looking back over those cartoons, I realized there’s a lot of work I’d like people to see, like this cartoon about the tragedy of family separation . . .

. . . or this one about Juul’s business practices.

Keep your eyes peeled for more un-buried cartoons in the near future.

Thanks so much for your support, I’ll see you back here shortly!

-Mark