Meta (Photo by Getty Images, Chesnot)
California's proposed Press Preservation Act would require online platforms to pay "press fees" to news providers whose work is published on those platforms in a bid to stem the downward trend in the local journalism sector.
Last April, the "Instant Articles" feature was finally removed, allowing news and media sites to publish articles and articles on Facebook without losing traffic. This change made advertising on Facebook unworthwhile for news sites, hence the new law, which aims to correct the distortion and save the dying press.
According to the Pew Research Center, employment in the U.S. newspaper industry fell 26% between 2008 and 2020. While more and more newspapers in the U.S. are closing due to lack of funding, North Western University reports that most citizens are not turning to digital alternatives, resulting in loss of knowledge, low civic engagement and a threat to democracy.
In a tweet, Meta spokesman Andy Stone called the payment structure a "slime fund" and said the bill would primarily benefit "large out-of-state media companies under the guise of helping California publishers."
The company is waging similar battles over compensation for news publishers both federally and in states outside the United States. In December, Stone said Meta would remove the news from its platform altogether if the U.S. Congress passed a bill similar to the one proposed in California.
The company is also threatening to remove the news in Canada in response to similar legislation proposed there. Google also joined the threats by announcing that it would remove links to news articles from search results in Canada.
The proposals are similar to a groundbreaking law passed by Australia in 2021, which also sparked threats from Facebook and Google to curtail their services. After a brief shutdown of Facebook's news feeds in Australia, various amendments were added to the legislation and the two companies eventually struck deals with Australian media companies. An Australian government report released in December concluded that the law had largely worked.
The current crisis joins declining profits and a series of tangles Meta has gotten into with authorities, including a $1.3 billion fine imposed by the European Union last week for violating user privacy in Europe. Tsuki may have been inspired by Elon Musk, who deliberately defies disinformation restrictions on Twitter in the name of freedom of information. Meta can only hope that what works in Europe doesn't work on its home turf.
So is this the end of print journalism in the United States? Walla Marketing & Digital will continue to update.
- Marketing & Digital
- Headers
Tags
- marketing
- Meta
- Press
- Usa
- United States