Facebook launches news service in India that will pay publishers for content
Facebook has launched its news service, Facebook News, in India that will pay news publishers for content and original reporting.
Over 95% of the traffic Facebook News is delivered to publishers
According to Campbell Brown, the vice president for global news partnerships at Facebook, the platform has found that over 95% of the traffic Facebook News delivers to publishers "is incremental to the traffic they already get from News Feed”.
Why is Facebook doing this?
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Australia has taken steps to ensure media businesses remain viable. The country treasurer Josh Frydenberg instructed the competition watchdog Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to develop a mandatory code of conduct for Facebook and Google.
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Originally due to be finalised by November 2020, the code was to require the digital ad giants to negotiate in good faith on how to pay news media for use of their content, to advise news media in advance of algorithm changes that would affect content rankings, to favour original source news content in search page results and to share data with media companies.
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The draft code will now be finalised by the end of July, with the government indicating the final text would be settled on soon after.
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Facebook will also be launching its news service in Germany, the UK, Brazil, and France, after launching in the United States in 2019.
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Meanwhile, Google has created a journalism emergency relief fund to provide support for local and small newsrooms on the frontline of covering the coronavirus pandemic.
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It believes local news is a vital resource for keeping people and communities connected in the best of times, and that it plays an even greater function in reporting on local lockdowns or shelter at home orders, school and park closures, as well as data about how Covid-19 is affecting daily life.
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Google will also waive ad serving fees for news publishers globally on its ad manager for five months.