Facebook has agreed to pay News Corp Australia to show news content on its platform under a recently announced three-year contract.
The tech giant held off on reaching a deal with Australia for a period of time, even going as far as blocking Australian users from viewing and sharing news links on the site. But less than a week later, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that Facebook had started negotiating with authorities again.
Facebook then lifted the news ban after officials agreed to make some changes in its proposed laws. News Corp Australia has now passed a new law requiring tech companies to pay for news content, and Facebook has agreed to abide by the new rule.
Compensating news publications
Under the partnership announced Monday, Facebook will pay to “provide access to trusted news and information to millions of Facebook users in Australia through its Facebook News product.” The deal will allow content from News Corp, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, to be featured on Facebook News.
“The agreement with Facebook is a landmark in transforming the terms of trade for journalism, and will have a material and meaningful impact on our Australian news businesses. Mark Zuckerberg and his team deserve credit for their role in helping to fashion a future for journalism, which has been under extreme duress for more than a decade,” News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson said in a statement.
News Corp noted that it’s also reached similar agreements with Google and Apple that will lead to news publications being fairly compensated by tech platforms for the content they produce.
“This digital denouement has been more than a decade in the making,” Thomson added.