Facebook “considers going back on its commitment to pay for the information” press publishers, reveals the wall street journal, and the potential shortfall for them is around “several million dollars”.
As part of media deals, Facebook has paid on average each year “more than 15 million dollars in washington postjust over $20 million in New York Times and more than $10 million in wall street journal”, according to the sources of the American economic daily. In return, Facebook offers its subscribers, in its News section, accessible in France since February 2022, “a selection of free articles”.
In 2019, Facebook struck a series of three-year deals with US news publishers. They therefore expire this year. And the social media giant has so far only “not indicated to the publishers if he planned to renew these partnerships in their current form”. On the contrary, according to the sources of the Wall Street Journal, Facebook “seeks to redirect its investments towards products that appeal to creators, such as short-form video producers, to compete with TikTok.” The company also invests “a lot in the metaverse, as shown by its recent name change [Facebook est devenu Meta]”.
Zuckerberg’s showered enthusiasm
Added to these considerations is the fact that Mark Zuckerberg would have been “disappointed with global regulatory efforts to force platforms like Facebook and Alphabet [Google] to pay publishers for any news content available on their platforms”.
According to the economic newspaper, repeat business, in Europe as in Australia, would have succeeded in “to curb the enthusiasm of Mark Zuckerberg, who wanted information to occupy a more important place in Facebook’s offer”.
