Recently threatened to remove news content from facebook in the us in response to a proposed law, the journalism competition and preservation act (jcpa), which would give news organisations greater power to negotiate fees for content shared on the platform. the jcpa was introduced in congress by minnesota senator amy klobuchar and has bipartisan support. last year, a similar law was passed in australia and led to news on facebook being briefly suspended.
Australian law took effect in march 2021 and resulted in a brief shutdown of facebook news feeds in the country. this prompted criticism from the public, leading meta to quickly reverse its decision and broker a deal with the australian government. supporters of the jcpa in the us argue that social media will become america’s “de facto local newspapers” if the act doesn’t pass.
Companies argue that meta generates huge sums of money from news articles shared on the platform, while local news in particular struggled during the pandemic. however, a meta spokesperson, andy stone, said that sharing news on facebook accounts for only a fraction of its revenue. matt stoller, director of research at the american economic liberties project, said media outlets were being “eaten alive” by meta, and that meta’s efforts to blackmail congress prove why it is a threat to democracies worldwide.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63869013?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA
