‘Work with Facebook or die’: Mark Zuckerberg

A senior Facebook executive has privately admitted Mark Zuckerberg “doesn’t care” about publishers.

Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Picture: AFP

A senior Facebook executive has privately admitted Mark Zuckerberg “doesn’t care” about publishers and warned that if they did not work with the social media giant, “I’ll be holding your hands with your dying business like in a ­hospice”.

In extraordinary comments, Campbell Brown, Facebook’s global head of news partnerships, indicated to publishers and broad­casters in a four-hour meeting last week that despite Mr Zuckerberg’s view, she would help publishers build sustainable business models through Facebook.

Mobile users click to see PDF

“Mark doesn’t care about publishers but is giving me a lot of leeway and concessions to make these changes,” Ms Brown said.

“We will help you revitalise journalism … in a few years the ­reverse looks like I’ll be holding your hands with your dying ­business like in a hospice.”

Facebook denies the comments were made. But five people at the behind-closed-doors meeting in Sydney on Tuesday, which was attended by more than 20 TV and publishing executives, have corroborated to The Australian that such phrasing was used.

Ms Brown is a former CNN prime-time host who was recruited by Mr Zuckerberg to improve rocky relationships with the news media.

Ms Brown issued a statement to The Australian saying: “These quotes are simply not accurate and don’t reflect the discussion we had in the meeting.

“We know there’s much more to do, but our goal at Facebook — what the team works on every day with publishers and reporters around the world — is to help journalism succeed and thrive, both on our platform and off.

“That means a new focus on building sustainable business models, and that’s what the discussion was about.”

When contacted about the comments, as relayed to The Australian by the five sources, Facebook indicated the meeting was recorded, but declined to release a full recording of the meeting. Facebook’s role in the media is coming under increasing global scrutiny as a high-powered investigation by the Australian competition regulator examines the impact of the tech giants on journalism and Mr Zuckerberg is blamed for the spread of fake news on Facebook after the 2016 US presidential election.

News media is suffering as people turn to Facebook and other big tech platforms as a primary destination for news and ­information. The problem is that most money generated by news content flows largely to Facebook and Google, not to the journalists reporters and publishers.

Resistance from some publishers to Facebook’s proposals exposes a clash of ideas about how to extricate commercially funded publishers and broad­casters from a worsening economic state. Ms Brown’s comments, according to the five sources, contradict the message Mr Zuckerberg has given in interviews, speeches and hearings ­before the US congress in April.