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submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

Meta's news ban is preventing Canadians from sharing vital information about the wildfires ripping through western Canada::Canadians are calling on Meta to lift its news ban so they can share news about the wildfires in the Northwest Territories and British Columbia.

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[-] CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.works 128 points 1 year ago

How about not relying on Facebook for such things?

[-] lasagna@programming.dev -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Have you tried rubbing a lamp?

Facebook has been abusing people's mental illnesses for decades. It will take more than a statement on lemmy to fix that.

The fires are happening today.

[-] inasaba@lemmy.ml -2 points 1 year ago

It's very hard to find the resources. The government sites are not SEO optimized, the URLs change, sometimes there's better info on local news websites. People are trying to share these vital resources with one another on social networks that already exist, and are finding that they cannot. In a time of crisis, you can't quickly set up another network on a different platform. Many people don't even know about better platforms.

[-] GillyGumbo@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What are the good resources? Because I just searched "Canada wildfire info" and got the Canadian Wild land Fire Information System" seems like a good place to start? Stop using Facebook for this shit (or anything else)

[-] inasaba@lemmy.ml -3 points 1 year ago

I don't use Facebook, but many affected by the wildfires do.

[-] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Facebook is not a legitimate news source. It never has been. This is not a failing of Facebook. It is a failing of the people who decided to rely on Facebook for news.

"News" from Facebook tells them shit like horse de-wormer will save them from smoke inhalation or bleaching their asshole will prevent the spread of forest fires. Facebook is a conservative manipulation machine. It is not a news source.

[-] inasaba@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

No, but it acted as a way for people to share links to legitimate news in times of crisis if that was where they normally communicated, and now they can't. Similarly, people got used to accessing Twitter to find realtime information on local events, and now that's also largely cut off.

I'm not defending the companies. I'm not defending people's dependence on them. I'm pointing out that the need exists in this moment, and that this isn't the moment to be shaming people who are actively fleeing a wildfire for decrying the fact that governments' and corporations' choices are impacting their ability to share information in a crisis.

[-] notatoad@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

government sites can still be linked to through facebook. that's not the issue.

facebook isn't linking to news sites. if you want news from news sites, go to the news sites. the "vital resources" aren't on CTV

[-] inasaba@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not responding to any more comments on this, but it's evident that a lot of you have never lived through a wildfire. All of the resources you need get centralized on local news sites (like Castanet for Kelowna) in a way that makes it easy to figure out what's happening. Many of the updates that local officials broadcast daily never get transcribed or posted anywhere except for local news sites such as that.

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

It’s very hard to find the resources.

JFC

[-] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's 100% intentional by the way. Surprise surprise the Canadian government/provincial governments have every incentive and desire to downplay and cover up the severity of the wildfires that were in part caused by their negligence and utter failure of an ecological policy. Just ask the people in Yellowknife who had the narrative changed from "there is absolutely nothing wrong, you're all perfectly safe, no need to leave or panic, seriously stay in your homes" to "just kidding you're actually a day away from burning to death."

this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
230 points (89.4% liked)

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