On June 5, Facebook responded to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) Mandatory News Media Bargaining Code proposal, saying the “competitive rivalry in the relationship between digital platforms and news publishers” is “healthy” as it is. This comes in the wake of news publishers struggling to monetize content and having to lay off workers, problems only exacerbated by the coronavirus. In its response, Facebook claimed that removing news content from its website would have an insignificant impact on Facebook’s revenues in Australia because “most users do not come to Facebook with the intention of viewing news.” Facebook believes its already-existing efforts to support journalism and the benefits publishers receive from sharing their content on the platform are sufficient compensation. Read more here.
Members of the News/Media Alliance staff have contributed to this post.
