Canadian media companies are caught in the middle of a standoff between Silicon Valley and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, with their audiences unable to access news on some of the world’s most popular social media platforms.

The government passed a law to try to force Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to pay publishers in return for linking to news stories, an attempt to boost an industry that has suffered from massive losses of advertising revenue. The big technology firms are pushing back hard. Meta has blocked all links to news content in Canada on Facebook and Instagram to avoid making payments; Google has threatened to remove news from search results.

But the stalemate is battering entrepreneurial news outlets that relied on Facebook to reach their communities, including small organizations that are sometimes the only providers of local news in rural parts of Canada. It’s a warning of the possible consequences for other governments in the US, UK and elsewhere pursuing similar legislation to aid journalism.