Meta plans to stop paying for news content, angering Australia

The decision pits Meta against the Australian government and its 2021 laws. (representative)

Sydney:

Meta Platforms said it would stop paying Australian news publishers for content that appears on Facebook, launching a new fight with Canberra. Canberra once led the world with a law forcing internet giants to enter into licensing deals.

News publishers and governments including Australia’s argue they unfairly benefit in terms of advertising revenue when links to news articles appear on Facebook and Google’s platforms. Meta has been scaling back its promotion of news and political content to increase traffic and said news links are now only a small part of users’ feeds.

Meta said in a statement that it would stop promoting the Australian and US news tabs on Facebook, adding that it had removed the UK, French and German news tabs last year.

As a result, “we will not enter into new commercial agreements for traditional news content in these countries, nor will we offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers,” the statement added.

The decision pits Meta against the Australian government and its 2021 laws.

“The idea that one company can profit from other companies’ investments, not just investments in capital, but investments in talent, investments in journalism, is unfair,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporter.

“That’s not the Australian way,” he added.

The government is seeking advice from Treasury and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on next steps.

Former ACCC chairman Rod Sims, who oversaw the design of the law, called Meta’s reversal “selfish” and said he was concerned about the impact the decision would have on society because it harmed the quality of journalism on social media .

“This is Mehta’s contempt for the Australian Parliament,” he said.

Under the 2021 law, the government must decide whether to appoint a mediator to determine Meta’s fees, and could fine Meta if it does not cooperate. The majority of Meta’s deals with Australian media are for three years and expire in 2024.

However, Meta would not be obligated to pay news publishers if it prevented users from retweeting news articles, as it briefly did in 2021. Meta has done the same thing in Canada since the country passed a similar law in 2023. Meta said Friday that publishers can continue to publish news content on Facebook.

Tama Leaver, professor of internet studies at Curtin University, said Meta was unwilling to prevent its users from posting news links in Australia, thereby escalating the dispute and making it more likely that the government would be challenged in court if it intervened.

“Meta will ask ‘What are you going to do?’ The Australian government needs to make a real decision,” he said.

Australia’s largest media outlets slammed the decision, calling it an attack on the industry.

News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller said: “Meta is using its considerable market power to refuse to negotiate and it is right that the government explores options on how to use its Media Bargaining Code powers.”

Nine CEO Mike Sneesby said the decision failed to recognize the value the media company had created for Meta. The company owns the Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review mastheads as well as a free-to-air television channel.

Although the value of the deal has not been disclosed, Australian media reported that the Facebook deal would be worth A$70 million (US$45 million) to the industry annually.

Most of Google’s media licensing agreements in Australia are for five years and expire in 2026. A spokesman said the company had begun talks to renew the agreement.

Many governments around the world remain keen to protect local journalism from being squeezed out of the online advertising market. Indonesia said last month it also plans to make big tech companies pay for news content.

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