Facebook to Spend $1 Billion on News Content Over Three Years
February 24 2021 - 12:53PM
Dow Jones News
By Paul Ziobro
Facebook Inc. said it would spend at least $1 billion to license
material from news publishers over the next three years, a pledge
that comes as tech giants face scrutiny from governments around the
world over paying for news content that appears on their
platforms.
The spending plans are in addition to $600 million that Facebook
paid since 2018 in deals with publishers like the Guardian,
Financial Times and others to populate its Facebook News product in
some countries, according to a blog post Wednesday by Nick Clegg, a
senior Facebook policy executive.
The social-media giant's new pledge is similar to a plan
Alphabet Inc.'s Google announced last year to pay more than $1
billion to license news content for its Google News Showcase over a
three-year period.
Facebook removed news from its platform in Australia last week
as the country's legislature debated a proposal that would have
required Facebook and Alphabet Inc.'s Google to pay traditional
media companies for their content.
Facebook reached a deal with the government Tuesday that would
restore news to the platform in exchange for measures like
additional negotiation with media companies before binding
arbitration kicks in. The revised legislation cleared its last
major parliamentary hurdle on Wednesday.
Australia sought to impose such requirements so that the tech
companies pay a portion of the costs publishers incur to produce
news content. Other governments, including Canada, have pledged to
consider measures similar to what Australia has planned. Many news
publishers world-wide have long voiced concerns that tech platforms
benefit from their content without adequately paying for it.
In his blog post, Mr. Clegg said that the proposed Australian
law would have required the company "to pay potential unlimited
amounts of money" to global media companies under the arbitration
system.
"It's like forcing car makers to fund radio stations because
people might listen to them in the car -- and letting the stations
set the price," said Mr. Clegg, a former U.K. deputy prime
minister.
Facebook intends to strike deals with news publishers to have
their stories appear on news products it is developing. Mr. Clegg
acknowledged concerns about the concentration of power among tech
companies and about ways to fund journalism, but he said that "a
new settlement needs to be based on the facts of how value is
derived from news online, not an upside-down portrayal of how news
and information flows on the internet."
News Corp, the parent of The Wall Street Journal, has a
commercial agreement to supply news through Facebook. Last week,
News Corp. also struck a three-year deal with Google to license
content from its publications and produce new products for Google
platforms.
Write to Paul Ziobro at Paul.Ziobro@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 24, 2021 12:38 ET (17:38 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024