News cannot resolve misinformation on Facebook and Instagram, according to Meta, which opposes mandating news content fees for Australian media organizations.

After 2021 contracts under the Morrison government's news media negotiating code expired, the tech giant indicated it would not renew news payment arrangements in March, per The Guardian.

Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones is considering whether the Albanese administration should designate Meta under the code to force the internet giant to negotiate payments with news producers or risk fines of up to 10% of its Australian turnover.

News is Substitutable

The report indicated that the Treasury Department may mandate news dissemination or influence Meta through the tax system. The government worries that designating Meta under the code may cause a news blackout in Australia, like in Canada since August.

Meta told a federal social media investigation that the news ban did not spread disinformation on its Canadian sites. It stressed that it has never considered news crucial for reducing disinformation, focusing instead on removing harmful content and fact-checked misinformation.

The Facebook parent asserted that Canadians may get authoritative information from government institutions, NGOs, and journalistic material.

Meta also mentioned its Canadian third-party fact-checking relationships to label or verify materials. The news ban did not reduce user engagement, according to the firm. It also stated that news content is "substitutable."

Mia Garlick, Meta's Australian head of policy, said all options were open if Meta were classified under the law, although she did not rule out censoring news.

Publishers say a news embargo would be terrible. Broadsheet, a city and entertainment guide publisher, told the committee that it may lose 52% of its income, endangering its viability.

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Americans Believe Fake News Will Impact 2024 Elections

Separately, a recent Project Liberty/Ipsos poll indicated that most Americans believe fake news will be a serious issue in the 2024 presidential election. The nationally representative survey of 1,020 people aged 18 and older revealed widespread misinformation concerns.

Only one in four Americans closely follows the news, with younger, black, and Hispanic Americans engaging the least. Most Americans check information using other news sources or online searches rather than social media or AI models like ChatGPT or Bard.

A third of respondents reported hearing misleading news. Many Americans believe that news outlets, journalists, and reporters are responsible for minimizing false news and disinformation regarding candidates and elections in 2024, while fewer believe the government is.

Recently, the Biden administration won a major victory when the Supreme Court overturned a lower court judgment that limited government officials' content moderation communications with social media businesses.

Although procedural, the verdict rejected two lower Southern courts that had supported the idea of government coercion of social media firms, NPR reported.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in a six-justice coalition that the five petitioners and two states lacked legal standing. She observed that they failed to prove the government persuaded Twitter and Facebook to limit expression. Justice Barret noted that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals used "clearly erroneous" facts.

Plaintiffs allege the White House flooded Twitter with censorship demands. However, Justice Barrett noted that the record contained no such requests. Instead, a White House staffer urged Twitter to deactivate a Biden granddaughter scam account. Twitter told the official about an upcoming facility for reporting such situations.

Justice Barrett stressed the significance of facts, condemning the lower courts for supporting a false narrative involving Biden administration officials and social media corporations.

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