Meta, the parent company of Facebook, threatens to chomp on the hand that feeds it if Congress follows through on a law to prevent social media platforms from poaching news content for free.

Senate Republicans and Democrats have struck a deal to include the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act in the pending National Defense Authorization Act. The journalism bill would allow small news organizations (yes, this newspaper included) to negotiate jointly with online platforms. Those local newsrooms pay to produce massive volumes of news for which the online platforms pay nothing while using the content to generate billions of dollars in ad revenue.

The U.S. bill, and a similar one in Canada, are modeled on Australia’s Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, which requires digital platforms to negotiate with news content providers.

When Australia’s government enacted that code, Meta blocked all news links for Australian users, and banned links worldwide to Australian news organizations. That didn’t last long, however, because Meta’s main competitor, Google, quickly negotiated deals with 200 Australian news organizations, forcing Meta to follow suit or face lost market share.Australia’s News Nine estimated the value of the news content in the first year to be $432 million.

Payment of negotiated prices for finished products is not a radical notion. It is capitalism. The current situation is akin to a retailer selling products and keeping the revenue, without reimbursing the manufacturer. Congress should pass the law to give local newsrooms the ability to negotiate fair compensation for their products.

— Tribune News Service