This archive report was first published on 15 June 2020.
Facebook's rejection of a call to share advertising revenue with Australian media has sparked concerns about the future of local news outlets.
According to a submission to Australia's competition watchdog, Facebook argued that news content represents a 'very small fraction' of the content in an average user's news feed.
The US tech giant claimed that if news content were to be removed from its platform, the impact on Facebook's community metrics and revenues in Australia would not be significant.
However, leading news publishers have demanded that Google and Facebook pay at least 10 percent of the advertising revenue they earn from news featured in their services to local news organisations.
Google has already rejected this demand, saying it makes barely Aus$10 million a year from news-linked advertising.
Facebook and Google argue that they provide hundreds of millions of dollars in value to Australian news companies by driving traffic to their websites, where they can be monetised through ads or turned into paying subscribers.
But the rejection of the call to share revenue has raised concerns about the future of local news outlets, with more than 170 newsrooms having seen cuts or halted publication in recent years.
