Facebook has threatened to block journalism in the United States if Congress approves legislation requiring the platform to negotiate with and compensate publishers for their material. Andy Stone, Meta's head of policy relations, stated on Twitter that if the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is implemented, Facebook will be "be forced to consider removing news." When comparable regulations were introduced in Canada and Australia, Facebook threatened to censor news.
The JCPA, which was introduced last year with bipartisan backing, would allow publishers to negotiate content distribution with platforms such as Facebook and Google. It's meant to offer news publishers a fighting chance against Big Tech, and it might force Facebook to pay for including news on its platform, something Facebook has battled hard in the past in other nations.
“If Congress passes an ill-considered journalism bill as part of national security legislation, we will be forced to consider removing news from our platform altogether rather than submit to government-mandated negotiations that unfairly disregard any value we provide to news outlets through increased traffic and subscription,” Stone writes. “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.”
In February of this year, Facebook removed news from its site in Australia due to similar regulations and even removed pages belonging to government entities. While the news was eventually restored once Australia's statute was revised, The Wall Street Journal suggested that the corporation may have introduced the disruptive ban on purpose in order to gain favorable modifications. The new version of the law provides publishers and platforms two months to reach an agreement or face compulsory arbitration. In response to Canada's Online News Act, which would likewise force the platform to pay for sharing news, Facebook issued a similar warning.
The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in September by a vote of 15 to 7, but it still has to be approved by the entire Senate. Facebook isn't the only company opposed to the law. A total of 26 groups, including Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote to Congress to oppose the bill. On the other hand, a broad coalition of publishing groups, including The Verge's parent company, Vox Media, has backed the measure.
Cutting off news in one of Facebook's most important areas would be a drastic escalation, but the firm has demonstrated that it is prepared to employ scorched earth methods to defeat news payment legislation throughout the world.
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