‘News is not the reason people use Facebook and Instagram’: Meta Australia hits back at media claims
Meta Australia has responded to media reports about its role in the news industry, debunking various claims, and sharing the company’s “concerns with the News Media Bargaining Code”.
“The truth is that interest in news is declining on our platforms and that our audiences are engaging with different types of content,” a blog post seen by Mumbrella claims, pointing out the success of newer formats like Reels across Facebook and Instagram.
“Primarily, we know our audiences come to Facebook to share the ups and downs of life, connect to local community groups, promote their business and or discover entertaining content. Links to news stories are a very small proportion of that — less than 3% percent of the content people see in their Facebook Feed.”
The post states bluntly: “News is not the reason people use Facebook and Instagram”, explaining “when there is less or no news on our platforms, people continue to use our services. However, much of the recent public debate suggests that Facebook needs or unfairly benefits from news content, including financially. This isn’t the case. Meta is a commercial business and it is in our interest to continue to create products and services that help us grow and be successful.
“The reality is that accessing news is simply not the reason most people use our services.”
Elsewhere in the post, Meta lays out its arguments: Active users on Facebook in Canada has increased since ending news availability; Meta provides value to news organisations, who choose to share their content on Facebook and Instagram and take advantage of this free distribution; and that, despite commercial agreements, there is no change to publishers’ ability to use Facebook and Instagram.
“Forcing technology companies into commercial relationships will not solve the long-term challenges facing public interest journalism or encourage the news industry to develop sustainable business models,” the post ends.
“We’ve been consistent in sharing that we don’t believe the News Media Bargaining Code framework fixes the long standing issues facing the news industry. We outlined these concerns in the 2022 review of the code.
“We will continue to engage with the government on this topic, and hope that the data and evidence we provide serves as useful reference points in this ongoing conversation.”
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Nathan Jolly is the Deputy Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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Meta providing more reasons not to spend with them.
They only maintain their status as a necessary evil if you continue to invest in them.
Time to collectively turn the taps off (atleast down a couple of notches!)
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Just like they did with turning down the taps on news and publishers?
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