Facebook brought the “News Tab” a few years ago, and the goal was to turn this social network into a news aggregation center for users. At first, Facebook, later rebranded as Meta, started paying US publishers for putting their news on the News Tab. However, the program didn’t proceed as planned, and Meta is now terminating the deal and has stopped paying US publishers. As per the report by Axios, Meta paid out almost $105 million to US publishers in three years. The company also paid $90 million for news videos. The giant US publishers took large portions of this money. For example, the Wall Street Journal got paid $10 million while the New York Times received $20 million. CNN also got $3 million. A source told the Wall Street Journal that the paid news push was an “experiment that ultimately didn’t pay off.” According to this report, the rules that force big companies like Meta to pay for news have made them reluctant to work with publishers.
Meta terminates the deal with US publishers
“A lot has changed since we signed deals three years ago to test bringing additional news links to Facebook News in the US. Most people do not come to Facebook for news, and as a business it doesn’t make sense to over-invest in areas that don’t align with user preference,” an unspecified Facebook spokesperson told Axios. Meta is not the only company forced to pay publishers for their news. Google is also paying some domestic and foreign publishers for using their content. Of course, the relationship between Big Tech and publishers has not always been so peaceful. Last year, Google faced a €500 million fine by the French Competition Authority for not paying publishers. This made Google sign a contract with over 300 publishers around the EU to use their news.
