Meta threatens to withdraw news content from California due to payments law

NEW YORK, May 31 (Reuters) – Facebook parent company Meta Platforms (META.O) announced on Wednesday that it would remove news content in its home state of California if the state government passed a law forcing tech companies to ban publishers to pay.

The proposed California Journalism Preservation Act would require “online platforms” to pay a “journalism usage fee” to news providers whose work appears on their services to reverse a decline in the local news sector.

In a tweeted statement, Meta spokesman Andy Stone called the payment structure a “black fund” and said the bill would primarily benefit “large, non-state media companies under the guise of supporting California publishers.”

The statement was Meta’s first specifically on California law, although the company has fought similar battles over news publisher compensation at the federal level and in countries outside the United States.

In December, Stone said Meta would remove messages entirely from its platform if the US Congress passed a bill very similar to California’s proposed law.

The company is also threatening to pull news in Canada in response to proposed legislation there, as has Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google, which has announced it will remove links to news articles from Canadian search results.

The proposals are similar to a landmark law that Australia passed in 2021, which also prompted threats from Facebook and Google to restrict their services.

Both companies eventually struck deals with Australian media outlets after legislative changes were offered. However, the standoff resulted in a temporary shutdown of Facebook news feeds in Australia.

An Australian government report released in December concluded that the law has largely worked.

Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the California bill.

Reporting by Katie Paul; Edited by Kirsten Donovan

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