Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta has announced it will stop paying news to Australian publishers, putting it on a collision course with the Albanon government, and plans to shut down its news tabs in Australia and the US.
Meta informed publishers on Friday that it would not sign new contracts when their current contracts expire this year.
The News tab, a dedicated news tab in Facebook’s Bookmarks section, will also be shut down in April, following similar closures in the UK, Germany and France last year.
Meta acknowledged the plan in a blog post while notifying publishers.
“While we plan to discontinue Facebook News in these countries, this announcement does not affect the terms of our existing Facebook News agreements with publishers in Australia, France, and Germany,” the company said.
“These agreements have already expired in the US and UK. Additionally, as we continue to invest in products and services that drive user engagement, we have entered into new commercial agreements for traditional news content in these countries. We will not be offering any new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future.”
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and Treasurer Stephen Jones were quick to condemn the decision, saying it “represents a dereliction of Australian news media’s commitment to sustainability”.
“The government has made its expectations clear,” the minister said.
“This decision will eliminate an important source of income for Australian news media companies. Australian news publishers should be fairly compensated for the content they provide.”
Ministers said the government was seeking advice from the Treasury and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on next steps.
“We will now consider all options available to us under the News Media Bargaining Code. The Government will continue to work with news publishers and platforms throughout this process.”
Mr Mehta said the decision was “part of our ongoing efforts to better align our investments with our products and services that people value most”, adding that more people in Australia and the US use Facebook News than ever before. He said it had decreased by 80% over the year.
“We know that people don’t come to Facebook for news or political content; they come to connect with others and discover new opportunities, passions, and interests. Previously in 2023 As we shared, people around the world see less than 3% of news in their Facebook feed, making it just a small part of the Facebook experience for most people.”
Facebook, along with Google, signed dozens of deals with publishers worth an estimated $200 million in 2021 to avoid “designation” under the Australian government’s News Media Bargaining Code. Digital platforms would then have had to negotiate with news publishers about their use of news media. Number of news content on the platform.
The federal government opposed the designation of both companies in view of the agreements that had been signed.
Before the bill was passed, Facebook removed all Australian news content in response to the bill, along with hundreds of pages from NGOs and governments. It has since done the same in Canada.
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Ending the deal does not mean you will no longer be able to access news links on Facebook, just that the tab will be closed. Media companies can continue to post content on their pages.
Rod Sims, who chaired the ACCC when the media bargaining code was developed, said Meta’s decision was self-serving.
“Platforms often talk about wanting a free internet, but what that means is that they get all the profits from the people who use the platforms, but the people who provide content on the platforms get all the benefits. That means not sharing anything,” he told the Guardian. Australia.
Sims said he’s concerned that Meta doesn’t seem to have much interest in publishing reliable news on its platform.
“I think this is a worrying trend. Social media companies obviously want to get people’s attention in order to advertise, but they don’t know what content people are seeing on their websites. I don’t care about that, which means I’m not responsible.” In some ways, I think they should, but of course it’s having a negative impact on our society. ”
Sims said it’s up to ministers to decide whether they should use their powers to force Mehta to negotiate, but Mehta will use Canada’s current ban on news links as a threat to what it can do in response. He said it was highly likely.
Nine chief executive Mike Sneesby said the decision did not recognize the value of Nine’s journalism on Meta’s platform.
“Regardless of Meta’s announcement today, the value created on the platform by the use of Nine’s intellectual property is unquestionable and continues to grow, and Meta is committed to fair compensation for that exchange of value. I strongly believe that we should negotiate accordingly,” he said.
“We continue to insist that these agreements are in our national interest and that the arguments that led to this norm in the first place are as strong as ever.”
Meta says this change does not affect third-party fact-checker networks.
