‘Grossly unfair’: Meta slams Australia’s bid to make platforms pay for news

Social media giant Meta has hit out at Australia’s latest plans to force digital platforms to support media outlets financially, labelling the proposals “poorly designed” and “grossly unfair.”

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, said on Thursday that the government’s News Bargaining Incentive (NBI) would shield news publishers from needing to undertake the innovation necessary for a sustainable media landscape.

“The NBI does the opposite: it insulates publishers from the competitive pressure to evolve by guaranteeing revenue regardless of whether they build sustainable business models,” the California-based tech giant said in a submission to the government.

“This entrenches dependency at the very moment when adaptation matters most.”

Meta also said the “economically incoherent” proposals would not lead to a sustainable news sector and “plainly” violate Australia’s commitments under its free trade agreement with the United States.

“A strong, independent media cannot be built on punitive taxes, levied on foreign companies, with no connection to the value exchanged,” Meta said.

Under the centre-left Labor Party government’s plans, social media and search platforms would face a 2.25 percent levy on Australian revenues if they do not make deals to pay Australian outlets for their news content.

Platforms that reach a set minimum number of commercial agreements would be able to reduce the levy to a rate that in effect would be 1.5 percent.

Revenues from the levy would be distributed among media outlets based on the number of journalists they employ.

The proposals specifically target Meta, Google and TikTok owner ByteDance but would not apply to AI developers that also influence search traffic, such as ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

The initiative is intended to replace the previous government’s News Bargaining Code, which Meta and other tech companies were able to bypass by pulling news content from their platforms.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled the plans in April, pledging to “back Australian journalists and Australian news”.

“Local news matters to local communities, and these stories can’t be told without Australian journalists,” Albanese said at the time.

The government estimated that the new scheme, which has to be approved by parliament, would generate 200 million to 250 million Australian dollars (US$143m to US$178m) for local media outlets.

Like elsewhere, Australia’s media sector has been hammered by collapsing advertising revenues, which supported a flourishing industry in the heyday of print publications.

More than 19,500 journalism jobs have been lost since 2008, according to the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Australia’s primary media union.