Facebook parent company, Meta Platforms, is threatening to pull news from its sites in California if the state passes a law requiring technology platforms to pay publishers.
This is the latest in a series of warnings from the company as various states consider similar legislation.
‘If the Journalism Preservation Act passes, we will be forced to remove news from Facebook and Instagram rather than pay into a slush fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers’, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone tweeted.
Consequently, users in California wouldn’t be able to read, post or share news on Instagram or in Facebook’s news feed, Stone said in an interview.
Under the provisions of the California bill, Meta and other major online platforms would be required to pay a “usage fee” to eligible news publishers.
The fee would be based on a percentage of the advertising revenue the platform receives, and would be set through an arbitration process established by the bill. News publishers would be required to spend 70% of profits from such fees on journalism personnel.
The purpose of the California legislation is to compensate publishers based on the value they create for technology platforms.
A similar federal bill that is pending in Congress is the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA). Unlike the California proposal, the federal bill does cap the size of participating publishers.
In December Meta similarly threatened Congress, after the JCPA was attached to the National Defense Authorization Act, a bill focused on national security.
Bill sponsor Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D. Oakland) said: ‘It’s egregious that one of the wealthiest companies in the world would rather silence journalists than face regulation’.