Rupert Murdoch says Facebook should pay up for news
NEW YORK - Media mogul Rupert Murdoch says Facebook (FB) should pay fees to "trusted" news producers for their content.
Murdoch, whose companies own The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, the New York Post and other media properties, said Monday that publishers are "enhancing the value and integrity of Facebook through their news and content but are not being adequately rewarded for those services."
"Facebook and Google have popularized scurrilous news sources through algorithms that are profitable for these platforms but inherently unreliable," he added in a statement. "Recognition of a problem is one step on the pathway to cure, but the remedial measures that both companies have so far proposed are inadequate, commercially, socially and journalistically."
Murdoch has previously criticized Google for the "theft" of news stories without payment.
Facebook said last week that it will boost news sources that its users rank as most trustworthy, while shrinking the percentage of news posts overall in users' news feeds.
But the plan has elicited skepticism in some quarters. As Facebook concedes, its previous reliance on users to flag questionable news content has failed, raising questions about whether users will be more effective in defining trustworthy news.
The news industry has struggled as print advertising erodes. Online, meanwhile, Facebook and Google dominate, together taking nearly half of global digital ad revenue, according to eMarketer.