Canada reportedly pledged to follow in the footsteps of Australia by introducing legislation requiring Facebook to pay for news content from local publishers, with new rules to be unveiled in the coming months.

Minister of Canadian Heritage Steven Guilbeault said one option would be requiring companies including Facebook and Google to agree deals with local news outlets for their content directly or through an arbitration process, Reuters reported.

Another possibility is a model adopted in France which calls for talks between the companies and news providers regarding compensation for content use.

Canada reportedly discussed collaboration with France, Australia, Germany and Finland on the issue.

Tougher rules were also reportedly being considered by the UK government and the German Newspaper Publishers and Digital Publishers Association (BDZV).

Facebook blocked news content in Australia earlier this week in response to proposed legislation requiring web giants to pay a fair price to publishers: it stated its business gain from news is “minimal” as it made up less than 4 per cent of the news feed content.