The Varsity’s community-focused journalism covers the topics you care about. We’re just having trouble  reaching people.

Last summer, Meta banned all Canadian journalism on their platforms — including Instagram and Facebook — in response to Bill C-18, which mandated media platforms to compensate news companies for displaying their articles. This fight between the Canadian federal government and a global corporation affected our local coverage of bugs in dining hall salad and student union controversies.

As a newspaper whose sole purpose is to communicate with a student body that we believe to predominantly use Instagram to communicate, Meta’s decision felt like banning the swim team from accessing the pool. 

It also doesn’t look like we’ve yet been able to recoup audiences on social media platforms other than Meta’s. In a readership survey we sent in April, over half of respondents said Instagram was how they primarily accessed our articles — and this was after our Instagram account had been closed for eight months. Evidently, our other social media accounts were ineffective since people found an account that posted nothing to be the best way to reach us. 

But we’re getting better. Thanks to our efforts, our articles were read 33 per cent more times this summer compared with 2023.

Here’s how you can find our work: 

  • We’ve created a second Instagram account to side-step the censorship. Find us at: @thevarsitypublications. You can also find our articles and job postings on LinkedIn. 
  • We are also active on X (formerly known as Twitter) and TikTok especially while reporting on the summer student encampment — Canada’s biggest student news story right on our front lawn at King’s College Circle.
  • We’ve launched a series of mini-documentaries on YouTube, which provide in-depth analyses into topics from legal actions against encampment protestors to 2SLGBTQIA+ representation in classes
  • On Friday, September 27 at 2:00 pm, we’re hosting an “Ask Us Anything” on the university’s subreddit, r/uoft.

I’m hiring a part-time social media editor. If you want to help make our news accessible on social media, email [email protected] for more information on applying.