Time for Facebook to pay for news: Murdoch
January 23, 2018
The owner of The Wall Street Journal, Fox News and Sky has urged Facebook to pay fees to display news content from respected sources, as the social media giant tries to tackle the rapid increase in fake news.
News Corp's executive chairman Rupert Murdoch said Facebook could help boost trust in online news, and support original journalism, by paying a "carriage fee" similar to those paid in the cable TV industry.
The 86-year-old media mogul spoke out as the social media firm attempts to prevent key political events becoming the target of spammers and trolls who use the site to spread false reports.
The issue came to light amid alleged Russian interference during the 2016 US presidential election campaign and during other key political events globally since.
Read more: Mark Zuckerberg makes 'fixing' Facebook a personal goal for 2018
"Facebook and Google have popularized scurrilous news sources through algorithms that are profitable for these platforms but inherently unreliable," Murdoch said in a statement posted on News Corp's website.
No solution yet
The executive chairman of 21st Century Fox said while both tech giants have recognized the problem, the solutions they have so far offered are "inadequate," adding that he had "yet to see a proposal that truly recognizes the investment in and the social value of professional journalism."
Murdoch's remarks follow a major change in strategy by Facebook, announced last week, that will see it boost news sources that its users rank as most trustworthy, while shrinking the percentage of news posts overall in users' news feeds.
The decision has led to concerns within the rest of the media industry that their content will be sidelined in preference of posts from users' friends and family.
The News Corp boss added: "We will closely follow the latest shift in Facebook's strategy, and I have no doubt that Mark Zuckerberg is a sincere person, but there is still a serious lack of transparency that should concern publishers and those wary of political bias at these powerful platforms."
Journalism needs funding
Murdoch complained that "publishers are obviously enhancing the value and integrity of Facebook through their news and content but are not being adequately rewarded for those services."
The rise of social media over the last decade has compounded the decline in advertising revenues for traditional print media outlets, as readers shift to online news sources.
Facebook and Google dominate the new era of media, together taking nearly half of global digital advertising revenue, according to eMarketer.
Research by Pew found that just under half (45 percent) of American adults use Facebook for news.
Read more: Fake news 'casts wide net but has little effect'
But despite the rapid reliance on social media, the Edelman Trust Barometer, the largest global survey about trust, found the media was the least trusted institution globally in 2017.
In 22 out of 28 countries surveyed, trust fell below 50 percent for the first time.
The fall was primarily blamed on the lack of faith in social media and search engines, which now rank below traditional media for reliable information.
mm/se (AFP, AP, Reuters)