Meta has threatened to pull all news content if the “ill-considered” Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is passed.
Mark Zuckerberg’s firm has already been made to pay local news outlets for content under laws in Australia and Canada, with New Zealand proposing similar legislation in recent days, and now the US has announced a journalism bill.
The company – formerly known as Facebook – has argued that outlets post their content on the social media app to boost traffic and subscriptions and it shouldn’t have to pay them for news on the site.
Meta said in a statement: “If Congress passes an ill-considered journalism bill as part of national security legislation, we will be forced to consider removing news from our platform altogether rather than submit to government-mandated negotiations that unfairly disregard any value we provide to news outlets through increased traffic and subscriptions.”
The outlets would be able to request a larger share of ad revenue from social media companies.
In Australia, Meta briefly stopped users from posting and viewing links to news stories on its platforms, but once the legislation was brought in the pause was reversed.
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