Facebook pledges to invest 1 billion dollars in news

Facebook has announced its plan to invest at least one billion dollars in the news industry over the next three years.

“Facebook is more than willing to partner with news publishers,” said Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs at Facebook, in a blog published Wednesday. “We absolutely recognize quality journalism is at the heart of how open societies function.”

The one-billion-dollar investment will be on top of the 600 million dollars the technology company has made since 2018 to support news publishers such as the Guardian and the Financial Times. Google also said it would pay more than one billion dollars to news media for their stories over the next three years.

Australia passed a new law on Thursday that requires tech companies to pay publishers for news content. “The Code will ensure that news media businesses are fairly remunerated for the content they generate,” said Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in a statement.

Facebook blocked all news content to Australians in protest at the bill but reversed the decision following talks with the government. The Australian government passed the law with new amendments to allow tech giants greater leeway in negotiating fees with media outlets.

With the passage of the law, much attention is being paid to whether North American or European countries will follow suit to regulate tech companies. Canada has already said that it would propose a similar bill. Bloomberg reported that Facebook and Google would face similar regulations across the globe.


Jae-Dong Yu jarrett@donga.com