Facebook on Wednesday announced that it plans to invest at least $1 billion in Australia to support the news industry over the next three years.
The announcement comes at a time when the Australian government passed a new media law that pushes tech giants like Google and Facebook to negotiate licensing agreements with publishers for their news content that appears on tech company’s feed.
“We’ve invested $600 million since 2018 to support the news industry, and plan at least $1 billion more over the next three years,” Facebook global policy chief Nick Clegg said in a blog post on Wednesday.
“Facebook is more than willing to partner with news publishers. We absolutely recognise quality journalism is at the heart of how open societies function — informing and empowering citizens and holding the powerful to account,” he added.
The social networking giant has already invested $600 million since 2018 to help the local news publishers and content platforms.
The new $1 billion commitment matches the one Google made in October last year, announcing that the search engine giant would start paying publishers to create content for its News Showcase platform.
Last month, Facebook announced deals with The Guardian, Telegraph Media Group, Financial Times, Daily Mail Group, Sky News and many more, including local, regional, and lifestyle publishers, to pay for content in its Facebook News product in the UK.
Similar deals have been reached with publishers in the US, and Facebook is in active negotiations with others in Germany and France.
Last Wednesday, Facebook had blocked its NES tab in Australia after the ruling government made the announcement of the new media law.
The Facebook News tab is where you can find headlines and stories next to news personalised to your interests.