A Meta spokesperson said the research confirmed the company's view that people still come "to Facebook and Instagram even without news on the platform." Canadians can still access "authoritative information from a range of sources" on Facebook and the company's fact-checking process was "committed to stopping the spread of misinformation on our services", the spokesperson said. A separate NewsGuard study conducted for Reuters found that likes, comments and shares of what it categorised as "unreliable" sources climbed to 6.9 per cent in Canada in the 90 days after the ban, compared to 2.2 per cent in the 90 days before. "This is especially troubling," said Gordon Crovitz, co-chief executive of New York-based NewsGuard, a fact-checking company which scores websites for accuracy. Crovitz noted the change has come at a time when "we see a sharp uptick in the number of AI-generated news sites publishing false claims and growing numbers of faked audio, images and videos, including from hostile governments ... intended to influence elections."