Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, announced on Wednesday its intention to eliminate news content from its platform in California if the state passes legislation that mandates tech companies to compensate publishers for their content.
The proposed California Journalism Preservation Act aims to address the decline of local news by requiring online platforms to pay a “journalism usage fee” to news providers whose work appears on their sites.
In a statement on Twitter, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone criticized the proposed payment model as a “slush fund,” arguing that it would primarily benefit large, out-of-state media organizations rather than supporting local California publishers.
This declaration marks Meta’s first direct response to the California legislation, although the company has been actively opposing similar initiatives regarding news publisher compensation both at the federal level and internationally.
Last December, Stone warned that Meta would completely remove news content from its platform if Congress enacted a bill resembling the one being debated in California.
Furthermore, the company is also contemplating a news withdrawal in Canada in response to similar legislative proposals, joining Alphabet’s Google, which has indicated it would eliminate links to news articles from Canadian search results.
These efforts mirror a significant law passed in Australia in 2021, which led to threats from Facebook and Google of service reductions. In that instance, both companies ultimately negotiated deals with Australian media after amendments to the legislation were made, despite an initial suspension of Facebook news feeds in Australia.
A report released by the Australian government in December stated that the law had been largely effective.
Google has not yet provided a comment to Reuters regarding the proposed California legislation.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
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