Australian PM calls Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta ‘arrogant’ for not renewing media deal

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Saturday called Meta executives “arrogant” after they decided not to renew a commercial agreement with Australian media.

“We believe that the arrogance that these companies have shown It is not aligned with the social responsibility they have. Many Australians get their news from social media. And they should have the responsibility to pay for that news, for that journalism that is so important,” Albanese remarked at a press conference when asked about Meta’s decision.

The statements come after several media conglomerates this month announced cuts to their staff due to the end of the agreement, sealed in 2021 and which expires this Sunday.

On Friday Nine Entertainment announced the dismissal of 200 people spread across some of the country’s main newspapers, while Seven West Media said on Monday that it would reduce 150 positions in its workforce and News Corporation reported 80 dismissals in the middle of the month.

In a letter published by the newspaper The Sydney Morning Heraldowned by Nine, the conflomerate’s director, Mike Sneesby, argued that the cuts were caused by a weak advertising market and the end of the commercial agreement with Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram.

“They have a social responsibility on social media. They should recognize that. And they should honor the commitments they had previously made,” the Australian Prime Minister stressed today.

In February, the American social media giant announced that it will not renew commercial agreements signed with various media outlets in Australia, Germany and France to publish news content on their platforms.

The Australian Government then criticized the step taken by Meta, whose agreements expire this month, and said that it is the “breach“of its commitment to pay media outlets, which “deserve fair compensation for the content they provide.”

Payments to news media outlets for publishing their news content in Australia began in 2021, when a world-first law was passed that required platforms such as Google and Facebook to make these payments, considering that these companies generated multimillion-dollar revenues.

The amount paid by Meta and Google to a dozen media outlets, including Australia’s public broadcaster ABC and the Nine group, is estimated to be 200 million Australian dollars (more than 132 million US dollars or 124 million euros), according to the Australian edition of The Guardian.