JAKARTA – Facebook parent Meta Platforms on Feb 22 said it understood it was not required to pay for content of news publishers posted voluntarily by users in Indonesia, following a government regulation seeking a sharing of profits between digital platforms and media firms.

Indonesia’s President signed a regulation on Feb 19 requiring digital platforms to pay media outlets that provide them with content.

It was a move aimed at levelling the playing field between big tech companies and the media industry.

Mr Rafael Frankel, Meta’s public policy director in South-east Asia, said in an e-mailed response to Reuters that after consultations, it understood it was not “obliged to pay for news content posted by news publishers voluntarily to our platform”.

The regulation is expected to take effect within six months.

It stipulates that digital platforms are required to strike a partnership with news companies in the form of sharing “revenues from the use of news by digital platforms produced by press companies according to economic calculations”.

Mr Usman Kansong, a senior official at Indonesia’s communications ministry, who oversees the new regulation, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Meta’s response. REUTERS