Facebook terminates news deal, Australian media retaliates

Meta believes it is above our governments and laws. It doesn’t care about the community (documentation)

Sydney, Australia:

Australia should stand up to tech giants, the head of one of its largest media groups said on Monday, days after Facebook parent Meta announced it would no longer pay news outlets.

News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller said Meta’s decision put hundreds of jobs at risk and exposed Australians to more scams and misinformation.

“Australia must not relinquish its leadership as a country prepared to stand up to the tech giants,” he said in comments to one of the company’s newspapers.

“Meta believes it is above our government and our laws. It doesn’t care about the community.”

Meta said on Friday it would cancel Facebook’s news tab in Australia and would not renew deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars with news publishers.

The social media giant said it decided to end the news deal because people no longer access news and political content on Facebook.

Miller added that despite Meta’s claims that it tries to stamp out scams, scams continue to occur.

“This is not just a scam, it’s misinformation, it’s fake news, it’s the social impact it has on all Australians…especially younger Australians who don’t have the maturity to understand that they are in a meta What you see on the platform is not always true,” he said.

“This not only damages the media industry, it damages our democracy.”

Meta had previously announced that it would not renew content agreements with news publishers in the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany.

The latest decision is already in the works but will be a blow to Australian news media already struggling to stay afloat.

A Meta spokesman would not comment on Miller’s remarks but said Friday’s decision still allows users to share and view news content, while publishers can still use their pages to share content.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)