Opinion | Facebook’s truce offer
1 min read . Updated: 09 Aug 2019, 05:00 PM ISTThe social media platform has posed a threat to media houses by turning into many people’s primary interface for all media engagement
It is not news that Facebook’s relationship with the news industry is one of discord. After all, the social media platform has posed a threat to media houses by turning into many people’s primary interface for all media engagement. Publishers have also been upset over their content being posted online, often depriving them of direct traffic (and, in turn, advertising revenues). However, Facebook’s latest move offering “millions of dollars" to news publishers for the legal right to directly publish their material on its site may help calm some nerves in that strained relationship.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, Facebook representatives have told news executives that they would pay around $3 million a year to license stories, headline-news and other forms of content. The social media company has confirmed the launch of a “news tab" this fall. Further, to sweeten the deal, Facebook would allow media outlets to decide how much of an article would appear on the site. This will also help publishers retain control over their articles in terms on how they appear on Facebook, and exactly what its users get to see, acting possible as a hook for their own websites.
Given that Facebook Inc. has command of the screens that billions of people choose to swipe open every day, what publishers are being offered is possibly the best they could hope for. Along with Google, Facebook has captured huge swathes of online ad revenue. The two reportedly accounted for an estimated 60% of all US digital ad revenue in 2018. A deal could work like a win-win for Facebook and the news media.
