Africa-Press – Lesotho. Meta has warned that it will remove all news content from its sites if Congress passes the Journalism bill, which will require the organisation to negotiate with publishers. The organisation’s communications director Andy Stone said they will be forced to do so from both Instagram and Facebook.
Stone said the move will be better compared to submitting to government-mandated negotiations that disregard the value Meta provides to news outlets through increased traffic and subscriptions.
“The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act fails to recognize the key fact; Publishers and broadcasters put their content on our platform themselves because it benefits their bottom line- not the other way around,” Stone said in a notice on Monday.
The Act, which has bipartisan support, was first introduced in 2021, by Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar and Louisiana Republican John Kennedy. In September, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill with a 15 to 7 vote.
It is however yet to be introduced on the Senate floor. The bill, if passed, would allow publications with fewer than 15,000 full-time employees to negotiate ‘terms and conditions, and pricing ‘ for major tech platforms may distribute its content.
The House’s advocates said the decision is necessary in countering the market dominance of Facebook and Google. Stone said it will interfere with the outlet’s revenue, as Meta provides traffic to news websites. A total of 26 organisations have opposed the bill including Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge.
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