Meta, the parent company of Facebook, declared on Friday (Mar 1) that they would cease remunerating news publishers in Australia for the content displayed on Facebook. This action has sparked a fresh conflict with Canberra, which had taken the lead among nations in enacting legislation compelling social media platforms to negotiate licensing agreements.
Both news publishers and governments, such as Australia’s, have asserted that social media behemoths like Facebook and Google unfairly profit from the links to news articles featured on their platforms. Amid these debates, Meta has scaled back its promotion of news and political content to drive traffic and has asserted that news links are now visible to only a fraction of users.
Meta has publicized its decision to discontinue the tab that promotes news on Facebook in Australia and the United States. Additionally, the platform withdrew the news tab last year in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
Consequently, Meta stated in its announcement, “we will not engage in new commercial agreements for traditional news content in these countries and will not introduce new Facebook products specifically targeting news publishers.”
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