Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has issued a warning of potentially prohibiting news content within its applications in the state of California.
In 2021, the technology giant led by Mark Zuckerberg made the decision to remove news content, specifically on its platform Facebook, due to legislation in Australia that mandated payment for news content.
Meta Threatens News Content Removal in California
During the 56th Munich Security Conference (MSC) held in Munich, southern Germany, on February 15, 2020, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, delivered a speech. The conference, which took place from February 14 to 16, 2020, focused on various security-related issues.
In the present context, Meta, previously known as Facebook, is issuing a comparable warning. As reported by Axios, the technology company intends to prohibit news content from its platforms, namely Facebook and Instagram, in California if a newly proposed bill is enacted into law.
Meta has issued a cautionary statement directed at lawmakers in California, warning them that it may withdraw all news content from its platforms, namely Instagram and Facebook, which have a substantial global user base. Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, explicitly stated, “If the Journalism Preservation Act is approved, we will be compelled to eliminate news from Facebook and Instagram.”
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California’s Efforts to Revive Declining Media Outlets
The company asserts that the bill’s requirement for them to compensate news publishers for their content would unjustly benefit “large media companies from outside California” while pretending to support local publishers.
The legislation in question is officially known as the California Journalism Preservation Act. Once it becomes law, it mandates that tech giants within the state, including the parent company of Facebook, pay news publishers for the utilization of their content.
There have been reports indicating that the proposed act seeks to enforce a “journalism usage fee” on online platforms like Google, requiring them to remunerate news publishers for the content displayed on their services.
The tax, which is determined by the advertising revenue generated by the platform, will be paid directly to the state. However, California intends to allocate a minimum of 70 percent of this payment to diverse media outlets across the state, as reported by NPR.
The primary objective of the bill is to address the notable decline in media organizations that have been grappling with the transition of advertising revenue from traditional print mediums to digital platforms.
According to the Meta spokesperson, the proposed bill in California presents the company with two options: either they make the required payments or they remove the news content from their extensive platforms.
