Facebook owner Meta dumps Australian media and news content deals in move slammed by Federal Government

Facebook’s parent company Meta is at loggerheads with the Federal government after it abruptly announced it was canning its multimillion-dollar deals with Australian news companies.

The tech giant’s withdrawal from the agreement, which sees Meta pay for news content it uses, was slammed by the Federal Government on Friday.

Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said the Government was “very disappointed” by Meta’s decision and that it was “an abrogation of responsibility” to Australia’s news media sector.

“What we want to happen is to see Meta back at the bargaining table negotiating in good faith and doing the very Australian thing of ensuring that you pay for what you use,” Mr Jones said.

“The Government takes the view that this is a dereliction of Meta‘s responsibility to Australia... we want to make it quite clear that we are backing Australian journalism.”

The Australian Government is committed to the news media bargaining code and is seeking advice from Treasury and the ACCC on the next steps.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said media publishers should be compensated with the decision to impact the media industry by $200 million.

“Australian journalists provide one of the most important public goods in our democracy and Australian news media publishers deserve to be fairly compensated for the investments that they make in that,” Ms Rowland said.

“The Government is very disappointed at this outcome. The decision undermines the viability of a healthy democratic, open media.”

Seven West Media managing director and CEO James Warburton called out Meta, saying it needed to be “designated”.

“The case has not only been made but proven and we welcome Ministers Jones and Rowland’s commitment to the news media bargaining code,” Mr Warburton said.

“We will work constructively with the ACCC and Treasury to ensure their designation.”

Earlier on Friday, Meta released a statement confirming the company would in April remove its news tab — Facebook News — in Australia and the United States.

It said news would still be allowed to be posted on the platform but the number of people using the tab had declined significantly over the past year.

“The number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the US has dropped by over 80 per cent last year,” the statement read.

“We know that people don’t come to Facebook for news and political content — they come to connect with people and discover new opportunities, passions and interests.”

The decision means the company is withdrawing support for the feature, but news won’t disappear from the site.

“People will still be able to view news on Facebook in feed in these countries, and publishers will continue to have access to their Facebook accounts and pages, where they can post their news article links and content,” Meta said in the post.

Politicians around the world have pushed Meta to compensate publishers for the stories that appear on the social network. The company previously stopped promoting news content for users in the UK, Germany and France.

Meta has also been avoiding making recommendations for posts about politics or political issues.

The tech giant previously suspended all links to news content on Facebook and Instagram in Canada to avoid making payments under the country’s Online Streaming Act.