Meta on collision course with Australian government after announcing end to journalism funding deals
Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, has set itself on a collision course with the Albanese government after announcing it will stop paying Australian publishers for news, and plans to shut down its news tab in Australia and the United States.
Meta informed publishers on Friday that it would not enter new deals when the current contracts expire this year.
The news tab – a dedicated tab for news in the bookmarks section of Facebook – will also shut down in April, after a similar shut down in the UK, Germany and France last year.
Meta confirmed the plans in a blog post at the same time publishers were informed.
“While we’ll be deprecating Facebook News in these countries, this announcement does not impact the terms under our existing Facebook News agreements with publishers in Australia, France and Germany,” the company said.
“These deals have already expired in the US and the UK. 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.”
The communications minister, Michelle Rowland, and assistant treasurer, Stephen Jones, quickly slammed said the decision, stating it “represents a dereliction of its commitment to the sustainability of Australian news media”.
“The government has made its expectations clear,” the ministers said.
“The decision removes a significant source of revenue for Australian news media businesses. Australian news publishers deserve fair compensation for the content they provide.”
The ministers said the government is seeking advice from Treasury and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on next steps.
“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.”
Meta said the decision was “part of an ongoing effort to better align our investments to our products and services people value the most”, and that people using Facebook News in Australia and the US had dropped by 80% in the past 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. As we previously shared in 2023, news makes up less than 3% of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed, and is a small part of the Facebook experience for the vast majority of people.”
Facebook, along with Google, signed dozens of deals with publishers in 2021 worth an estimated $200m seeking to avoid being “designated” under the Australian government’s news media bargaining code, which would have forced the digital platforms to negotiate with news publishers for the use of news content on the platforms.
The federal government opted against designating both companies in light of the deals signed.
Before the legislation passed, Facebook removed all news content in Australia, along with hundreds of pages from NGOs and government, in response to the proposed legislation. It has since done this in Canada.
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The end of the deals does not mean news links will not be accessible on Facebook, just that the tab is being shut down. Media companies will still be able to post content on their pages.
Rod Sims, who was chair of the ACCC when the news media bargaining code was developed, said Meta was selfish in its decision.
“The platforms often talk about wanting a free internet, but what they mean by that is they get all the benefits from people using their platform but don’t share any of that with people who provide the content on the platform,” he told Guardian Australia.
Sims said he was concerned Meta appeared less interested in having trusted news on its platform.
“I think that’s a worrying trend, where social media companies obviously want people’s attention so they can advertise to them, but they’re not concerned about the type of content people are looking at on their website, which means they’re not taking responsibility in a way I think they should and that of course is damaging our society.”
Sims said it was up to the ministers to determine whether the powers to force Meta to negotiate should be used, but said it was likely Meta would use the current ban on news links in Canada as a threat of what it could do in response.
Nine’s CEO, Mike Sneesby, said the decision doesn’t recognise the value of Nine’s journalism to Meta’s platforms.
“Regardless of the Meta announcement today, the value created on their platform from the use of Nine’s IP is both unquestionable and growing and we strongly believe Meta should negotiate in good faith around the fair compensation for that value exchange,” he said.
“We will continue to robustly advocate that these deals are in the national interest and the arguments that led to the code in the first place remain as strong as ever.”
Meta has said that the change will not affect its third-party factchecker network.