February 23, 2024
JAKARTA – Meta has said it will be relatively insulated from the impact of Indonesia’s newly signed publishers’ rights rule, which requires tech giants to pay local media outlets for news content presented on their platforms.
“After several consultations with stakeholders, we understood that Meta would not be required to pay for news content voluntarily posted by news publishers onto our platform,” Rafael Frankel, Meta’s public policy director for Southeast Asia, told The Jakarta Post in a statement on Wednesday.
He also said he appreciated that the government recognized the benefit that news publishers could get from the services Meta provided.
The presidential regulation establishing the publishers’ rights rule was signed on Tuesday, National Press Day, after months of delays resulting from stalled negotiations between publishers and digital platforms. It will only come into force in August.
Usman Kansong, director-general of information and public communication at the Communications and Information Ministry, said the publishers’ rights rule made no exceptions for digital platforms, including Meta.
All digital platforms were required to negotiate partnerships with media firms that could take the form of paid licensing, revenue sharing or data sharing, among other arrangements.
Aside from paying for news, the regulation also outlines wider responsibilities for tech platforms, such as prioritizing news content produced by verified media outlets, contributing to journalist training programs and curbing the spread of fake news in the country.
However, he noted that the implementation could differ based on the business models of each platform, adding that some of Meta’s platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, were not actively collecting news content.
“They are different from search engines like Google, which automatically look for news content and distribute it,” he said.
Media firms may not be able to claim compensation from Meta if they post their news voluntarily on the platform.
“If media firms posted their news voluntarily on the platform, it means there is no partnership in the beginning, right?” Usman said, adding that payments to news would only be possible if platforms and media outlets struck a deal.
Indriaswati “Indri” Dyah Saptaningrum, a special staff member for Deputy Communications and Information Minister Nezar Patria, said the regulation defined a tech platform as one that operated on a commercially driven basis and involved data collecting and processing.
“The presidential regulation was composed with a tech neutrality principle. Thus, it applies universally to all digital platforms,” she told the Post on Thursday.
That included platforms relying on user-generated content like Facebook, she added.
However, payments to media outlets would be obligatory only if the news content was monetized by the platform, she said.
In August 2023, Meta took issue with the regulation’s focus on payments from tech companies for news links shown on its platforms.
“A regulation that compels Meta to pay for links for content that we do not post and which are not the reason the vast majority of people use our platforms is neither sustainable nor workable,” Meta’s Frankel told the Post at the time.
Google, meanwhile, said on the day the regulation was signed that it had worked collaboratively with news publishers and the government to support and build a sustainable future for the news ecosystem in Indonesia.
“Throughout this process, we have highlighted the need to ensure Indonesians have access to diverse sources of news and support a balanced news ecosystem in Indonesia, one that delivers quality news for everyone and allows news publishers, large and small, to thrive,” the company said in a statement to the Post.