Facebook, Google owe news firms

Facebook and Google should pay media companies for news content that appears on their platforms. And the tech industry should acknowledge that Facebook’s ham-fisted bid to “unfriend” Australia proves that social media companies have too much power over news content distribution. If the tech community won’t clean up its act, nations around the world will.

Facebook plays a central role in how news and information is consumed. Research firm Statista reports that 52% of Australians get their news from social media. Pew research surveys reveal that 44% of Americans use Facebook as their primary source of news. CEO Mark Zuckerberg maintains that news distribution is a small part of his business, as if that’s an excuse for ignoring Facebook’s responsibilities as a big player in the media universe.

Shutting off Facebook’s news sharing in Australia is the latest example of Zuckerberg’s failure to recognise his journalistic obligation to the public. It took the Capitol riot of January 6 for Facebook to ban Donald Trump from spewing lies about election fraud. During the campaign, Facebook had for months refused to block political ads on its network or police the truthfulness of messages sent by political campaigns.

Four years earlier Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm hired by Trump’s election campaign, used the social media firm’s information on 50-million users in an effort to influence the behaviour of American voters.

Facebook’s purported mission statement is “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together”. It is hard to see how Facebook is making any progress in that endeavour given its role in perpetuating the political divide. But Zuckerberg’s effort to improve his bottom line is clearer. Since 2016, his net worth has grown from $51bn to an estimated $109bn in 2021. /San Jose, February 25