Facebook will invest at least 1 billion dollars to support news journalism over the next three years. This was announced by the company's Vice President for Global Affairs Nick Clegg on Twitter.
Facebook absolutely recognizes quality journalism is at the heart of how open societies function—informing and empowering citizens & holding the powerful to account. That’s why we’ve invested $600M to support the news industry, & plan at least $1B more over the next three years.
— Nick Clegg (@nick_clegg) February 24, 2021
"Facebook absolutely recognizes quality journalism is at the heart of how open societies function—informing and empowering citizens & holding the powerful to account. That’s why we’ve invested $600M to support the news industry, & plan at least $1B more over the next three years," he wrote.
The decision was made after a scandal with blocking access of users from Australia preventing them from sharing and viewing news on the social network. Now the company is ready to cooperate and support news journalism.
Earlier, on February 18, Facebook "turned off" news in Australia. A news blackout is the result of a bill that would oblige IT companies such as Google and Facebook to pay Australian media money for their content. If Google was still able to agree, the social network simply refused to pay the tax and "showed power." It also affected the pages of government agencies that report on health care, weather and koalas. The Australian authorities, in turn, said that the American company was "wrong."
