Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., announced Tuesday that it would be “forced to consider” removing news content from its platform if the US Congress passes a bill that requires tech companies to pay news outlets. for your stuff.
The Journalism Competition and Preservation Law, if approved, would allow news organizations to collectively bargain with social media platforms on the conditions for news material to appear on social media.
Meta said it would rather remove the news from its platforms than “submit to government-imposed negotiations that unfairly ignore the value we provide to the media.” The value, Meta noted in a statement tweeted by spokesman Andy Stone, includes “increased traffic and subscriptions.”
Menlo Park, California-based Meta has taken similar stances in the past. Last year, it briefly blocked news from its platform in Australia after the country passed a law requiring tech companies to pay publishers for using its news. He later struck deals with Australian publishers.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the bill’s sponsor, said the bill simply allows news organizations to come together to negotiate better prices for their content with “the biggest companies the world has ever known.”
“In one quarter, Google pulled in $66 billion in ad revenue while newspapers and small radio stations went out of business left and right,” Klobuchar said. “We just try to get a fair price for the content,” he added.