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Journalism has been nearly destroyed by Google and Facebook stealing news — and they shouldn’t use threats to escape regulations that demand they pay to profit from them.
Canadian lawmakers are debating whether to make online platforms pay for news they post, but Meta says so will not pay a dime – and Google is already looking at blocking news in the country.
In both cases, these companies have managed to get this far without paying for what they use. Facebook did make a performance of signing news deals with publishers in 2019, but then it changed its recommendation algorithm so that few users knew there was a news section.
As a result, Meta was able to say that few users read news on Facebook, so it “makes no sense to invest too much in areas that don’t align with users’ preferences.” It wasn’t overinvestment, it was paying what was due.
Meta is now making the same argument in Canada, saying that since it makes next to nothing on news, it shouldn’t — and won’t — pay.
Only Meta really knows what it makes in news, but if it really was so little because so few users read it, the publisher fees wouldn’t be much. Threatening to shut down news in Canada rather suggests that there is more to it.
And there is, just not necessarily in dollars and cents. Facebook relies on user-shared content plus interaction. It contains news to boost traffic, but it also replaces other news sources.
Facebook, and Google too, have made themselves the platforms people go to for news by becoming ubiquitous.
In a great business move, Facebook and Google were powered by the news they used to destroy other news sources. Advertisers would have gone to Google to reach more people, but Google was also able to undermine any publication to keep the business safe.
At the same time, Facebook spent its early years convincing news publications that video was not only the future, but their only way to survive. Facebook knew its data didn’t support this, but faced with advice from such a large company, news publications turned to video.
Publications flipped on a deliberate lie of the house Zuckerberg built, and couldn’t backtrack when it turned out to be disastrous.
As a direct result of Facebook’s actions with video, Google’s actions with ads, and a combination of all their efforts to dominate, we now have far fewer newspapers in the United States.
And those that remain are mostly owned by huge conglomerates, uninterested in what is happening at the local level. However, this is usually a point for another day.
There’s an argument that Meta and Google ultimately shot themselves in the foot because there are now fewer news publications to pull from and advertising is no longer going up. Not to mention how writing for Google is becoming more important than writing for people – at least not today.
Either way, if they’ve shot themselves in the foot, it’s minor compared to the massive collateral damage that will never be recovered.
It also doesn’t look like either company will willingly try to fix the issues. A spokesperson for Meta has announced this Reuters that the company disagrees with what is being discussed in Canada.
“A legal framework that forces us to pay for links or content that we don’t post, and that aren’t the reason the vast majority of people use our platforms, is neither sustainable nor workable,” the spokesperson said.
“All we ask of Facebook is to make fair deals with news outlets when they benefit from their work,” said Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. “This is part of a disappointing trend this week that tech giants would rather get news than pay their fair share.”
We’ve been here before
The situation in Canada resembles what happened in 2021 when the Australian government tried to intervene. Facebook not only threatened to remove news, it did.
Suddenly, literally overnight, governments, news sites, and even charities saw their news stories disappear. The Australian government made exceptions for Facebook and Facebook the pages restored.
Australia actually called that victory over Meta, where Facebook phrased it slightly differently. According to Facebook, the problems with Australia have been “clarified”.
“We’ve reached an agreement that allows us to support the publishers we choose, including small and local publishers,” said Campbell Brown, vice president of global news partnerships at Facebook.
“Going forward, the government has made it clear that we will retain the ability to decide whether news appears on Facebook,” Brown continued, “so that we will not automatically be the subject of forced negotiations.”
Just as the 2019 publisher deals were subsequently followed by Facebook’s algorithms reducing news visibility, the Australian regulations have had no direct effect. According to Wiredalthough at least they have had an indirect one but significant An.
Google presumably paid for that board, it can also pay for the news it uses
Facebook reportedly negotiated deals with 11 news publishers following the changes in Australian law. However, none of those negotiations followed the country’s new procedures, and all are classified.
So it’s not known how much Facebook might be paying, nor is it remotely known if Meta is once again hiding news to undermine its value.
In any case, less is known about Google. Reuters says it’s experimenting with cutting news in Canada, but hasn’t said anything. Meta has been quite outspoken about what it will do if the country passes the regulations in question.
Significantly, Meta hasn’t pulled news pages yet, as it did in Australia, and is instead holding on. Perhaps that means it’s learned it’s a financial blow to pull them out and just hopes the threat of removal will be enough.
If there is any doubt about what Meta, Facebook and Google will do, there is absolutely no doubt about what they should do. There is no question about what they should have done all along.
When you use someone’s work, you pay them. That is it.
There is no option to say that you are not paying because you are not making much money from someone’s work. That’s like saying you shouldn’t get arrested for stealing just a little bit from someone every day.