Facebook said Tuesday will launch the main tab feature in the UK from next year, paying publishers for stories sent through the world’s leading social networks.
The arrival of Facebook news in January came after the service was launched in the United States at the end of 2019 and was part of a plan to extend it throughout the world, US company said.
“With Facebook news, we will pay the publisher for content that does not yet exist on the platform, help encourage a new audience, and bring greater monetization opportunities,” he added.
The titles covered in the first wave of the agreement include economists, the Guardian, Mandiri and Mirror, and local newspaper London night standards, Manchester Evening News and The Scotsman.
Lifestyle magazines such as Cosmopolitan, GQ, Vogue and Tatler also register, while there is a video partnership with Channel 4 News.
Director of Facebook News Partner, Jesper Doub said the company was “in active negotiations” to bring the feature to France and Germany.
“We will continue to work with publishers in countries where market conditions and regulations include this kind of investment and innovation,” he added.
Media companies have struggled with the plight of advertising income and print sales because content has been moved online and is available for free, forcing a number of titles to be closed.
In April, the National Association of Journalists (NUJ) said the Pandemic Coronavirus had made the situation worse and asked the British government to impose a decomposed fortune tax against Giants Tech Global to help support the publishers who struggled.
NUJ Assistant Secretary General Seamus Dooley said foreign-based platforms including Facebook generated large advertising revenues in the UK behind the free news content but pay a little domestic tax.
“There are many general things between entrepreneurs and owners who effectively this is a platform provider that takes our lunch,” he told AFP.
“They depend on the work of media organizations – journalists, photographers and videographers.”
Last week, Google said that it has signed an individual agreement on copyright payments with several newspapers and French magazines, after months of fighting over sharing income from the news display in search results.
Agence France-Presse, who along with other media groups have submitted a complaint against Google with the French competition regulator, not signing an agreement.
But the Chief Executive AFP Fabrice Fries said he was “optimistic” about increasing relations with Google, Facebook, and Apple, who also sold news features.
