Meta should be legally forced to host news on Facebook and Instagram, a coalition of diverse news publishers say, taking away its key trump card in an escalating war with the Albanese government and Australia’s big media companies.

The $2 trillion tech giant has declared it will not sign new deals paying upwards of $70 million a year to media companies to host their content on its platforms. It agreed to at least 13 deals under the threat of the then-Coalition government’s news media bargaining code laws three years ago.