Facebook Will Pay Publishers in UK for News From 2021

[engine]

Facebook has announced it'll start paying selected UK publishers for news content from 2021. The news content is a tab in the mobile app, and is not on desktop.

It plans to extend this in due course, but at the moment, here's details of the initial publishers involved.

The first group of publishers featured in Facebook News in the UK includes Archant, Conde Nast, The Economist, ESI Media, Guardian Media Group, Hearst, Iliffe, JPI Media, Midland News Association, Reach, STV and others.

[about.fb.com...]

[ronin]

Why would Facebook UK do this?

Might this be related to the Facebook Instant Articles vs Google AMP battle back in 2016?

Is this FB gearing up to initiate Round 2?

[1Lit]

I appreciate there is a lot of heat on Facebook, as there is towards almost every business that is highly successful, but this step is not logical. Facebook are not publishing full articles from these publications on their app/website (or are they?)

As the article linked to above states, Facebook users do not generally consume content from these news sources and so, if anything, Facebook is introducing new readers to them, who visit their websites and apps. Therefore, I don't see why Facebook should have to pay these newspapers and magazines from a legal or moral perspective.

I can see the argument for it from a Public Relations perspective, but that's quite a different matter.

[engine]

1Lit , I think you've missed the point. FB wants the content, and is going to pay the publishers for it.

[1Lit]

Thank you for clarifying engine+. I thought it was the same set-up as current, with Facebook providing the headlines and perhaps few words from news sources (Google News), then linking to the content.
I didn't realise it meant Facebook was going to host the full news articles from newspapers etc., as Yahoo and Microsoft/Bing do on their websites.

[asparkhya]

I think it is good. Publisher get benefited and we get authentic news on facebook

[ronin]

It seems very odd that this is happening in the UK, while, on the other side of the world in Australia, something like the reverse is happening right now...

[webmasterworld.com...]

Oh... but this is all part of the same overall thing, is it?

It's just that in the UK, Facebook has been able to put a deal together before being given orders by the regulators.

[Kendo]

Who wants FB's selection of news in the Facebook pages which are mainly used for keeping in contact with "friends"?

It is time for them to keep their place. We get enough ads which they profit from. We get recommended links and friends that no-one wants so that they can sell more ads. Now they want to influence politics?

I get my news from mainstream news services that are trusted and not offshore profiteers!

No one and no country should bend to that collection meglomaniac imbeciles.