News Corp, the information giant headed by Rupert Murdoch, has reached a three-year agreement to release its content on Facebook in Australia. The deal was signed three weeks after Canberra introduced a law requiring digital platforms to pay for the news. As a result, Facebook blocked news sharing in Australia, causing a wave of outrage that the emergency services, health departments and charities fell into the block. Subsequently, the social network revoked the law and agreed to negotiate paid agreements with the Australian media, leading the government to relax the rules in the so-called News Media Bargaining Code. Under the agreement, the Australian media headed by News Corp will provide content via Facebook’s “News” service.
It’s a similar arrangement to the one the companies entered into in the United States in October 2019. It will apply to dozens of newspapers across the country – including The Australian, The Daily Telegraph in Sydney e Herald Sun of Melbourne. The economic details of the agreement were not disclosed.
News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said the result was “more than a decade in preparation”. Andrew Hunter, head of Facebook’s news partnerships in Australia and New Zealand, confirmed the deals and said the company is “committed to bringing Facebook News to Australia.” Facebook and Google, the two companies targeted by the regulation, had strongly opposed clauses requiring them to undergo mandatory arbitration over the amount owed to local media for showing Australian news on their platforms and search results. Google has negotiated multi-million dollar content licensing deals for its “Showcase” product with a number of Australian companies, most notably the country’s two largest news groups: News Corp and Nine Entertainment.
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