Facebook parent Meta has threatened to remove news content from its platform after reports said that US lawmakers are planning to pass journalism a bill that is aimed at making it easier for news organisations to negotiate collectively with tech firms such as Facebook and Google. The warning highlights the danger that Meta perceives to its business model in the face of the proposed bill, known as the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), says a report by CNN Business.
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Introduced in 2021, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), once passed, will allow news publishers to negotiate with Facebook and Google over the use of their content.
“If Congress passes an ill-considered journalism bill as part of national security legislation,” Andy Stone, Meta Spokesperson, tweeted a statement from the social networking giant.
“We will be forced to consider removing news from our platform altogether rather than submit to government-mandated negotiations that unfairly disregard any value we provide to news outlets through increased traffic and subscriptions.”
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The US Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act in September, but it still has to pass through the full Senate.
According to Stone, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act "fails to recognise the key fact: publishers and broadcasters put their content on our platform themselves because it benefits their bottom line -- not the other way around".
To recall, earlier in 2021, Meta-owned Facebook pulled news from the platform in Australia in the wake of a similar legislation, which forced it and Alphabet-owned Google to pay news publishers for content. However, it later restored news content to its users in Australia. Facebook also issued a similar threat in Canada over its Online News Act, which would also require the platform to pay publishers for sharing news.