Meta and the Canadian government are currently in negotiations as Canada considers implementing new, mandatory processes that would see the social media platform enter a revenue share system with publishers in the press. This is due to the platform benefiting from the fact that a majority of the public is getting their news from social media and coming to the platform to get it.
But Meta disagrees, saying that the platform doesn’t need news to thrive.
According to a new report by NERA Economic Consulting (which was commissioned by Meta): “News content from traditional publishers is of low value to Meta and declining, while publishers benefit from traffic from social media apps.”
Meta should remember that news is an all-encompassing term. You might think you’re not going to Facebook to read the news, but you’re going to see the gossip, or the trending topics, or the internet news. All of that is still news and social media is your main source of finding it, given the biggest publishers in the industry find it beneath them or too niche. These articles around affiliate marketing, for example, wouldn’t be found in the broadsheets or even the tabloids, but someone is reading them and they likely found them on our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram account.
However, the lack of “traditional” news on the platform might help CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has been making a show of moving away from “hateful” content since it was exposed in early 2022.
In relation to political content, back in 2021, he not that: “One of the top pieces of feedback we’re hearing from our community right now is that people don’t want politics and fighting to take over their experience on our services.”
