Australia: Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has declared it will no longer be involved in deals to pay news publishers in Australia, prompting condemnation from the government and the media industry.
“Additionally, to ensure that we continue to invest in products and services that drive user engagement, we will not enter into new commercial deals for traditional news content in these countries and will not offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future,” Meta stated in a blog post.
The company assured that the move will not affect existing contracts with publishers until they expire. The tech giant further said that it would shut down the News tab in Australia and the US in April, after retiring the feature last year in the UK, France and Germany.
The California-based company remarked that, “It was making the changes to “better align our investments to our products and services people value the most. As a company, we have to focus our time and resources on things people tell us they want to see more of on the platform, including short-form video.”
“The number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the US has dropped by over 80 percent last year. We know that people don’t come to Facebook for news and political content – they come to connect with people and discover new opportunities, passions and interests,” Meta added.
Meta secured agreements with various traditional media outlets following the passing of landmark legislation in Australia in 2021, which required tech platforms to compensate for the news content shared on their platforms.
The News Media Bargaining Code was introduced to prevent platforms like Facebook and Google from exploiting free news content to gain advertising revenues, which were supposed to be going to struggling news organizations. The Code has been emulated in other jurisdictions, including Canada, following these accusations.
Michelle Rowland, the Australian Communications Minister, and Stephen Jones, the Assistant Treasurer and Financial Services Minister, have accused Meta of not keeping its commitment to the sustainability of Australian news media.
“The Government has made its expectations clear. The decision removes a significant source of revenue for Australian news media businesses. Australian news publishers deserve fair compensation for the content they provide,” Rowland and Jones noted in a joint statement.
“We will now work through all available options under the News Media Bargaining Code. The government will continue to engage with news publishers and platforms through this process,” Rowland and Jones added.
“Facebook should compensate news organisations for making money from their journalism – if it won’t do it voluntarily, the govt should use the powers it has to force it to,” Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, Australia’s biggest union for journalists, expressed in a post on X.
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