California has passed a bill that mandates major social media networks like Facebook and Instagram to compensate news media for the content shared on their platforms. This initiative aims to support local journalism by establishing specific criteria that limit its application to powerful platforms.

The “California Journalism Preservation Act” includes an arbitration mechanism that will determine a percentage of the advertising revenue generated by these social media networks and allocate it to online news content producers.

California votes to force social networks to pay news media

However, Meta has threatened to completely remove news information posted on its sites rather than contribute to a black box fund that primarily benefits large out-of-state media organizations, under the guise of helping local publishers.

California votes to force social networks to pay news media

It is worth noting that a similar bill is currently being reviewed in the Canadian Parliament, while in France, Google reached an agreement with publishers and agencies to remunerate content displayed in its search results or other similar services starting in 2022.

If definitively adopted, this Californian law will allocate at least 70% of the revenue earned by these publishers to various newsrooms.