The California House of Representatives approved a law proposal that requires prominent social networks to pay media sums of money for the content that is published on their platforms, despite Meta’s threat to completely dispense with these articles, photos and videos.
After Thursday, the majority of parliament members voted in favor of the law proposal submitted by representatives of Democrats and Republicans aimed at supporting the local press, it was referred to the Senate. reports Al-Rai daily quoting AFP.
The law, called the California Press Preservation Act, sets several criteria that would limit its application to a few major digital platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
It provides for an arbitrage mechanism that determines a percentage of the advertising revenue of the social network to be paid to producers of online journalistic content.
“Meta” spokesman Andy Stone tweeted, “If the law is passed, we will have to withdraw information from Facebook and Instagram instead of financing a fund that specifically benefits major media outside the state, under the pretext of helping press publishers in California.”
He pointed out that publishers upload their own articles and videos via social media, pointing out that the establishment of the media presence in California preceded the emergence of Facebook.
In 2021, Facebook temporarily blocked news content in Australia after passing a similar law, before it and Google agreed to conclude deals with the media and invest sums to support them.
The proposed law in California stipulates that at least 70 percent of the payments that publishers will receive should be allocated to the editorial side.