Minister responds after Meta announces it will cease paying for Australian news on online platforms

Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says Facebook’s parent company Meta has “zero ­regard” for the importance of ­public-interest journalism.

Australians are likely to turn their backs on Facebook in response to the reckless and unethical corporate behaviour of the online platform’s parent company Meta, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has warned.

Earlier this month, Meta – ­controlled by US billionaire Mark Zuckerberg – announced it would cease paying for Australian news on its online platforms, thus depriving local news media organisations of a combined hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for their content.

The trillion-dollar company signed 13 payment-for-content deals with Australian media outlets in 2021 but will not be renegotiating any of those agreements upon their expiry later this year – a move which is a likely breach of the news media bargaining code and a contravention of local competition laws.

Ms Rowland told The Herald Sun that Meta had shown “zero ­regard” for the importance of ­public-interest journalism, and had wilfully ignored the fact that any potential news void that arises from the dumping of properly ­researched news from Facebook would invariably lead to the online spread of misinformation and ­disinformation.

Michelle Rowland says Meta has shown ‘zero ­regard’ for the importance of ­public-interest journalism. Picture: Martin Ollman

“Australians are questioning the behaviours of many aspects of big business at the moment,” Ms Rowland said.

“They’re questioning supermarkets, they’re questioning banks. Where people have the capacity to make decisions, they’re doing so in a way that’s not simply an attempt to be ethical, it’s a reflection of the fact that they prefer a certain brand above others.

“And I think we’re going to see more of that (with social media platforms).”

The Albanese government is still in the process of considering whether to “designate” Meta under the terms of the news media bargaining code, which would ­result in the US company being forced into arbitration with Australian news publishers and potentially face fines of more than $1bn.

Michelle Rowland says Australians are likely to turn their backs on Facebook.

“The government has sought advice from both Treasury and the ACCC, and we’re working through the processes under the news media bargaining code,” Ms Rowland said. Asked about the timeline of a possible designation of Meta, she said it was too early to put a deadline on it.

“It is important to follow that process – which has never been enlivened in Australia before – ­because Meta will challenge every stage of the regulatory decision-making, they will find reasons to seek judicial interventions, and they have deep pockets to be able to do it. The government is mindful of how litigious this entity is.”

Ms Rowland also noted that two-thirds of the payment-for-content deals struck in 2021 were agreements between news publishers and Google, although they are five-year deals, as opposed to the three-year Meta deals.

The Communications Minister said Google “would be watching” how the stand-off with Meta played out.

There is no suggestion that Google intends to retreat from the renegotiation process when their payment-for-content deals are up for renewal in 2026.

Ms Rowland said Labor was taking a “whole-of-government” approach to dealing with Meta, as the payment-for-content deals issue was just one of many. A “suite” of online harms related to the company’s online platforms (it owns Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as Facebook). “Online scams, misinformation, disinformation, the need to have proper dispute resolution … and that’s before we even get to bigger issues like market power,” she said.

Ms Rowland said that, despite the enormity of the task in bringing big tech companies to heel, she was confident the government could reach a satisfactory outcome that defended Australia’s values. Any company that operated in Australia must comply with the country’s laws and respect its “social licence”, she said.

Asked about claims that Meta’s refusal to pay for news on its platforms would “undermine democracy”, Ms Rowland said: “It’s a very valid assessment. We’ve seen the desire to pull news and it does create two tiers of information.

“First, you have reliable news content that’s created by journalists, that costs money, that is subject to standards, then you have the digital detritus that’s left over from that. If news is taken off that platform, that vacuum will be filled by information that is either propaganda or clear disinformation, that is not subject to any rules, is not subject to any regulatory restraint and that creates two tiers of information. And one of those tiers (legitimate journalism) is simply removed.”