Facebook's parent company Meta announced plans on Thursday to stop paying publishers for news content in Australia, a move that drew fierce backlash from Canberra government officials.
Meta said in a blog post that it “will not enter into new commercial agreements for traditional news content” in Australia, France or Germany and “will not offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future.” Stated.
“Although we plan to retire Facebook News in these countries, this announcement does not affect the terms under existing Facebook News agreements with publishers until they expire in these three countries,” the tech giant said. added.
Meta also said it would remove tabs promoting news content on Facebook in Australia and the US, adding that it removed similar features in the UK, France and Germany last year.
The announcement faced harsh criticism from Australian government officials, who claimed Mehta had threatened to dry up news publishers' income. Australia has been one of the most aggressive countries in requiring Meta to pay its media outlets.
In a joint statement, Australia's Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and Finance Minister Stephen Jones condemned Meta's decision as a “failure in Australia's news media commitment to sustainability”.
“The government has made its expectations clear,” Roland and Jones added in part. “This decision eliminates an important source of income for Australian news media companies. Australian news publishers should be fairly compensated for the content they provide.”
Mr Rowland and Mr Jones said they would seek advice from the Australian Treasury and the country's competition watchdog on how to proceed.
According to Reuters, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters: “The idea that one company can benefit from the investments of others, not just investments in capital, but investments in people, investments in journalism, is unreasonable.'' It's fair.'' “That's not the Australian way.”
The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance is one of Australia's largest journalists' unions. Posted in X: “@Meta doesn't care about journalism at all?”
Karen Percy, head of the union's media division, added: “This is an act of arrogance by a company with too much power that believes it is beyond the reach of any government.”
Publisher owners around the world have long accused social media platforms of unfair deals when it comes to news. They argue that Facebook uses headlines to increase user engagement without necessarily returning traffic or ad revenue to newsrooms.
In 2021, Australian government officials sought to change the status quo by enacting a landmark law, the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, that would require technology platforms to pay for news content that appears on them. did.
But in recent years, Meta has significantly scaled back on promoting news and political content on its platform, and the company cut funding to U.S. news publishers two years ago, a strategic shift. I mentioned this directly in this week's blog post.
“We know people don't come to Facebook for news or political content; they come to connect with others and discover news opportunities, passions and interests,” the company said. Last year, the news rate was “less than three,” he added. %” is what his Facebook users around the world saw in their feeds.
U.S. newsrooms have struggled recently, in part due to a decline in referral traffic from social media giants like Facebook. Meta-owned social media service Instagram and Thread leaders have made it clear that news and political content will not be recommended by their algorithms.
