Facebook’s fight with the Australian media

Sam Hawley: It may have passed you by, but right now the big news publishers in Australia are in an almighty standoff with Mark Zuckerberg and the tech giant he controls, Meta. Meta runs Facebook and has decided its users don't care for news content anymore and it doesn't want to pay for it. Today, when social media dumps news, is it game over for journalism? I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily.

Monica Attard: Hello, I'm Monica Attard. I'm co-director of the Centre for Media Transition at UTS.

Sam Hawley: Monica, it was way back in the early 2000s that Facebook was born and I think to understand what's happening now, it's really worth starting our discussion there.

Monica Attard: Oh yes, and it is such a great story, isn't it? It's the subject of movies and all sorts of things.

News report: An online hangout where people go to chat and share photos and videos with friends. Facebook is just the latest internet darling.

Monica Attard: In 2003, it was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and three of his then friends, all of them were at Harvard University studying. Originally they called it FaceMash, which is a shocking name really, and it was intended to be an online service for students to judge the attractiveness of their fellow female students. And of course that violated university policy so it was shut down. So he created a new social network which was then called The Facebook, which launched in 2004.

News report: It's just you, me and 900 million of our closest friends using Facebook.

Monica Attard: It began to draw in advertisers.

News report: Mark Zuckerberg is now worth $19 billion. His co-workers are multimillionaires.

Monica Attard: And it was the first kind of internet-based direct advertiser-consumer engagement that we'd seen on a large scale. So that's how it started.

Sam Hawley: But over time, Monica, the platform changed slightly, didn't it, because it wasn't just somewhere to go to share information about yourself but to actually get information, including news content.

Monica Attard: Absolutely, yeah. It quickly moved from an ethos of share your life with us to an ethos of, you know what, we also own the news so come to us for that. Because of course at the same time as this was all happening, which was about around 2008 to 2010, you've got media organisations moving online, obviously, many had already gravitated online, but lots of news sites starting up. So Facebook kind of became a curation platform so that you could join the news groups on Facebook that you wanted to, you know, have access to and leave the rest behind. So it really kind of began to own the news as well. Of course, for news organisations that was good as well because they were able to reach massive audiences very, very easily on Facebook. But of course what that meant really at the end of the day was that because Facebook was able to filter what people saw and access by playing with the algorithm, it really meant that news organisations were in essence working for Facebook and it took them a long time to actually understand that.

Sam Hawley: And then in 2021, so fast forward a bit, the Australian government really cottoned on to this, didn't it? Because it became one of the first in the world under Scott Morrison to force Facebook to pay for that news content. He was really taking on the big American tech companies, not just Facebook but Google as well.

Monica Attard: Absolutely. So the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission designed this scheme to get some sort of equity into the relationship between the platforms and news media businesses to address what they saw as a power imbalance where the platforms could use the content of news media to further their own profits but were getting that product essentially for free and of course the loss of ad revenue because online ad revenue was flowing to the platforms, not to the media organisations. So in March 2021, the government introduced to Parliament the News Media Bargaining Code. But important to note of course, the law hasn't actually come into effect. It hasn't actually been triggered because unless the Treasurer designates a platform, it doesn't come into effect. There's a get out of jail cheaper than might otherwise be card on the table for the platforms to play. So in other words, if they negotiate, then the Treasurer doesn't need to designate the platforms. So they did in fact negotiate and negotiated these quite lucrative deals with news media businesses in Australia which are said to be worth upward of $200 million a year. So it's quite a lot of money.

Sam Hawley: Okay, so Monica, just so I've got what you're saying right, under the legislation, the government could force the tech giants to negotiate with media organisations and that's what's called designating. But they didn't need to use the law because they did the deals on their own. So basically they came to the table but not without a dummy spit.

Monica Attard: Oh, they most certainly did, yes.

Sam Hawley: They pulled all their news content from the platforms in some sort of protest.

Monica Attard: Yes.

News report: A number of Australian Facebook users have reacted with shock and anger over the sudden decision to pull news from their feeds.

News report: Facebook pulling the plug, not just on Australian publishers of news but the Bureau of Meteorology, emergency services, charities, universities.

Sam Hawley: But then of course they backed down.

News report: After the public dust up and tough talk came the concessions.

Paul Fletcher, fmr Communications Minister: We have announced some minor amendments and Facebook has indicated that it will be restoring news to its Australian pages.

Sam Hawley: And they came up with deals with Australian news organisations and as you say, they were really, really lucrative.

Monica Attard: It has been incredibly lucrative for some media organisations, for example, the ABC. The ABC was able to hire 60 people to bolster its regional offering. Some 55 news reporter positions were created, which is very significant, and five supporting positions. Guardian Australia was able to advance its operations too by bringing forward plans to expand. The Australian not only hired new journalists but also went into the education business with Google, creating a school of digital journalism. And of course small regional publications also benefited. So that's quite a lot of money if you consider it, upward of $200 million a year. If that were to, you know, in part disappear, then that is quite problematic.

Sam Hawley: So Monica, that brings us to today because Meta, that runs Facebook, well, it doesn't seem to care for news content anymore. What's it had to say? What's it doing?

Monica Attard: So essentially the subject of these side deals in the shadows of the News Media Bargaining Code were for news media organisations to provide Meta with news content specifically created for them, which would appear under what they called the Facebook News tab. The irony here is that the News tab is not visible on your Facebook page. I mean it's impossible to find. Because of that, Facebook says that traffic to the News tab has declined by some 80%. Well, of course it has because nobody can find it. But what Meta has announced is that it's closing down News tab in April and there will be no further negotiations with news media organisations. I think basically, you know, what Meta is saying is that we play ball, we gave news a heap of money, it didn't deliver traffic for us, so we're out.

Sam Hawley: And as it moves away from news and gets rid of that News tab, which you say you can't find anyway, that $200 million that news organisations have been receiving kind of dries up. And Facebook's refusal to strike new deals with media companies, it's really angered the former head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims.

Rod Sims, fmr ACCC chair: The concern is that this would mean less journalism, less money to journalism, people will see less journalism on social media. That has implications for society.

Sam Hawley: And the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, is also furious.

Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister: We know that it's absolutely critical that media is able to function properly and be properly funded. Journalism is important and the idea that research and work done by others can be taken for free is simply untenable.

Sam Hawley: So what are they so worried about?

Monica Attard: Well, they're worried about an awful lot, actually. And important to note that it's not the entire money. Google is still in the game. Google has not indicated that they're going to not negotiate with news businesses. But the consequences are huge. I mean, a lot of these news businesses went on big hiring sprees in the last three years in an environment where, for example, for commercial media, subscriptions have kind of plateaued, where there's a deep distrust of mainstream news on top of that. And ad revenue remains basically in the gutter. And I think the government is very concerned that, you know, the integrity of information might take a blow as well because news will still be able to appear on Meta. In other words, they'll still have their pages. But you're relying on people to subscribe to those pages. If they don't, there's no benefit to news whatsoever. I think the biggest consequence, though, is really for the integrity of information on Facebook without news content, without its checks and balances, without the verification processes that go into the creation of news. You know, the information that is likely to appear will be, you know, more unchecked, unverified information. So the opportunities for yet more mis- and disinformation will be huge. And as we know, the platforms, particularly Meta, haven't been that good at policing mis- and disinformation on their sites. So it is a very big problem.

Sam Hawley: Mm, and then a flow on from that, of course, is the concern about the health of democracy. Tell me, what is the government doing about this?

Monica Attard: Well, the Assistant Treasurer has said that, you know, the government will use all levers within its control under the Code. So let's assume that they're going to move to designate Meta, the Treasurer will designate Meta. But if Meta is designated, then it goes to compulsory arbitration, which is where a media company puts a figure on the worth of its product to Meta. If Meta refuses to negotiate or refuses to pay, then it's in breach of the Act. Big fines follow. But you'd have to assume that at some point, either before that arbitration or during it or when a decision is made, that they would pull the plug on news almost, you know, completely. In other words, news sites don't have pages. You can't link to news items in your Facebook feed. That is what they've done in Canada, and it is likely to happen here as well.

Sam Hawley: Mm, so, Monica, if governments can't make social media giants like Meta pay for news, or if they just get rid of news altogether from their platforms, how do governments then make sure that news organisations can remain viable into the future if they can't rely on that sort of money anymore?

Monica Attard: I mean, Sam, it is the multi-million dollar question, that one.And if I had an answer, I'd be charging for it, because, I mean, there's no magic bullet, really. News has been disrupted in a state of flux, facing existential threat for almost 20 years. I think we need to rebuild trust in news and information produced by media organisations themselves. We need to wean people off sourcing their information from social media platforms that don't take verification seriously. You know, we need to roll out media literacy programs to show people how to distinguish between good and bad information. At the end of the day, I mean, the government has to step in and put a value on news as a public good. Now, of course, that comes with its own issues. How do you value news? How do you stop interference in news output if it's funded by government? How do you convince people that because government is funding it, that it can be trusted? I mean, of course, the ABC has managed to do that, but it has, you know, decades of history to support that claim of independence. You know, the fourth estate is a pretty important part of our democracy. Without it, we are in trouble. We are really in trouble.

Sam Hawley: Monica Attard is the co-director of the Centre for Media Transition at the University of Technology, Sydney. This episode was produced by Bridget Fitzgerald and Nell Whitehead. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.