Meta warns that news will be pulled from Facebook and Instagram if California’s press protection law is passed
Meta has threatened to pull news from Facebook and Instagram if California’s press protection law is passed. Once the bill is paid, the big tech has to pay a “press usage fee” when it distributes local news content on its own platforms.
“If the Journalism Preservation Act is passed, we will have to remove news from Facebook and Instagram instead of paying into an unofficial fund that primarily benefits large outside media companies by helping California publishers,” Meta said. his book. permission.
According to the Mark Zuckerberg-led company, the bill ignores the fact that publishers and broadcasters put their content “on our platform itself and that the major consolidation in California’s local news industry happened more than 15 years ago, before Facebook was widely used.”
Meta further said it was disappointing that California lawmakers appeared to be putting the interests of national and international media companies ahead of their constituents.
California’s Preservation of the Press Act taxes advertising revenue generated by news article distribution platforms.
Buffy Weeks, the bill’s sponsor, said the measure could provide a “lifeline” for local news organizations that have seen declining advertising revenue.
“As news consumption has gone online, community news outlets have been downsized and closed at an alarming rate,” Weeks said at a hearing on the bill earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Danielle Coffey, executive vice president of the News Media Alliance trade group, blasted Meta for threatening to withhold news in the state, reports NPR.
“Meta’s threat to remove news is undemocratic and inappropriate. We’ve seen this in their evidence before,” Coffey said in a statement.
