Meta may remove news feeds due to California’s Journalism Preservation Act.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is making headlines again. This time, they’re threatening to pull news feeds on their platforms for California residents if the state legislature passes the Journalism Preservation Act.

“If the Journalism Preservation Act passes, we will be forced to remove news from Facebook and Instagram rather than pay into a slush fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers,”

– Andy Stone, Meta policy communications director

The proposed law, AB 886, requires big tech companies to pay news outlets a journalism usage fee and is aimed at reversing a decline in California’s local news sector. However, Meta expressed its opposition to the proposal in a statement posted on Twitter on May 31.

Support for Local News Industry

Democrat State Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, who sponsored the California bill, tweeted that Meta’s threat was “a scare tactic that they’ve tried to deploy, unsuccessfully, in every country that’s attempted this.”

“It is egregious that one of the wealthiest companies in the world would rather silence journalists than face regulation,” Wicks said.

The California bill would also require publishers to devote 70 percent of the proceeds from these fees to create and maintain positions in journalism throughout the state.

Social Media Companies Face Similar Fight in Congress

The social media giant has been waging a fight over similar compensation for news publishers at the Federal level in Congress and in countries overseas. Meta previously posted a similar threat to Congress on Dec. 5, that they would remove news entirely from its platform in the United States if the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), which closely resembles the California legislation, was passed.

“If Congress passes an ill-considered journalism bill as part of national security legislation, we will be forced to consider removing news from our platform altogether,”

– Andy Stone, Meta policy communications director

The News Media Alliance, a trade group representing newspaper publishers, pressured Congress to insert the measure into the Omnibus spending bill in December, arguing that “local papers cannot afford to endure several more years of Big Tech’s use and abuse, and time to take action is dwindling. If Congress does not act soon, we risk allowing social media to become America’s de facto local newspaper.”

However, the JCPA failed to make it into the spending bill in the end. But on March 31, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, and John Kennedy (R-La.) reintroduced the JCPA.

The JCPA was written to give small news publications collective negotiating power against Big Tech companies, the senators said in a press release.

“Local news is facing an existential crisis, from ad revenues plummeting and newsrooms across the country closing to artificial intelligence tools taking content,” Klobuchar said.

“To preserve strong, independent journalism, we need to give news organizations the ability to negotiate on a level playing field with the biggest tech companies.”