Social media users are rarely more than five swipes from the news that people believe is essential to their daily lives.
A groundbreaking new study probing the habits of Australian social media users debunks Meta’s big lie that news has no importance to their platforms.
For the first time we can say with absolute confidence that Australians overwhelmingly consume need-to-know news on social media, with more than 40 per cent of us citing it as the reason we are motivated to use social media daily, with the number rising to 60 per cent for gen Z and 53 per cent for millennials.
It confirms that Australian news remains a vibrant, healthy part of our daily ritual. One in two Australians source news from social media and news updates are the reason why many of us return multiple times daily.
And there is also a clear distinction between news we need to know, and what news is merely nice to know.
Until now, accurately measuring how much Australians use social media to consume news has been impossible. When it comes to providing user and content information, Meta, the obsessively secretive owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads has hidden, avoided, eluded and dodged transparency and responsibility.
Detailed analysis of survey results from 2500 Australians consumers, collected by third-party research provider Dynata confirms how deeply social media has conditioned Australians for their news fix.
By asking social media users detailed questions about how they find and consume news and the role it plays in their lives the research directly contradicts Meta’s constant downplaying of the role real news plays in the lives of its users.
It exposes Meta’s long-held, misleading assertion that “news makes up only 3 per cent of what people around the world see on their Facebook feed” as a cynical joke.
Having conditioned us to this daily habit, Australians are deeply anxious about what might happen should Meta follow through on its public threat to withdraw news sources from its platforms, to be replaced by Meta’s misinformation merchants. Its laissez faire approach to accountability is causing real social concern.
The findings carry national significance, given the public harms caused to our economy and daily lives. That this is the case is beyond reasonable doubt.
Concerned Australians should consider the findings carefully. Policymakers first and foremost, because we know we will be ignored by Meta. What ordinary Australians are saying needs to be heard.
Meta’s fiction that news is not consumed on its platforms is ground zero for its argument why it should be free of any obligation – moral, legal or otherwise – to pay for news content. Even when legislated to do so by the Australian parliament, which had the temerity to disagree with Silicon Valley’s biggest bruiser when it overwhelmingly passed the News Media Bargaining Code in 2021.
Meta is testing the limits of this globally significant law, recklessly refusing to renegotiate and renew deals with Australian media companies whose news it uses to build the habits of its users.
The research also backs up and supports the original definition of news which drove the code in the first place. Australians understand the value of news to their lives.
People rank news as an “essential” ingredient to their “critical daily and life decisions”.
This definition of news relates to familiar hard-news topics such as politics, international relations, business and economics, local community and education.
The research makes clear that “lifestyle” topics such as fashion and entertainment are not considered “essential” information to people’s lives, despite people often enjoying them more than news.
Interesting but needed? No. It shows that while Australians enjoy lifestyle information, they are motivated by the need for Australian news.
What this shows is Australians’ need for the federal government to stay the course and designate Meta under the code. Designation is the legal requirement forcing Meta back to the bargaining table to reach commercial terms.
While many are concerned designation would prompt Meta to replicate its cruel act in Canada and turn off the news here in Australia, or even abandon the market altogether, it must adhere to the laws and responsibilities that other companies operating in Australia do.
By revealing, for the first time, the extent of Meta’s mistruths the research also shows Australians are united in a growing disdain for the Silicon Valley giant.
The research also found that 70 per cent of Australians overwhelmingly agree with my call made in June at the National Press Club that a social licence – laws, rules and requirements – be introduced to stop the tech companies’ anti-competitive and anti-social harms.
Only 7 per cent rejected the idea outright.
But sadly, the findings will come as no surprise to anyone who has tried – rarely with success – to hold the platforms to account.
Nor will it satisfy those who have asked why does Meta refuses to follow the same rules and laws applying to other businesses?
Nor will it provide much comfort to the nation’s increasingly sparse newsrooms, nor to the growing number of communities at risk of losing their local media champions, more victims of Meta’s belligerence.
Saddest of all, the findings cannot undo the personal tragedies social media has inflicted on so many Australians, especially our young and most vulnerable.
This research takes the pulse of how the Australian public considers this critically important and growing issue.
It’s time for policy makers to listen, and time to start acknowledging the public’s wisdom and worries.
Michael Miller is the executive chairman of News Corp Australasia
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