The former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims, has published a paper warning that Facebook faces sanctions if it continues to skirt the rules of the news media bargaining code.

In the paper, published by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism today, Sims takes aim at Facebook “arbitrarily” deciding to no longer bargain with Australian news publishers, despite risking being ‘designated’ under the terms of the code.

Facebook and Google avoided this ‘designation’ by striking a number of commercial deals with various publishers. If they don’t play ball, they risk designation, which makes them subject to arbitration and heavy fines.

“Google is still talking to news businesses and more deals may be announced soon,” Sims writes.

“Inexplicably Facebook, now Meta, let it be known that they have now stopped doing more commercial deals with news businesses of the type envisaged by the news media bargaining code.

“When defining which media businesses would be eligible, the focus was on media that predominantly produced ‘core’ news.

“SBS is a hybrid-funded public broadcaster, with around two thirds of its funding coming from the Australian government.

“The Conversation (an online news website) is a unique collaboration between academics and journalists publishing research-based news and analysis.

“Those outlets clearly qualify (for payment) under the code no matter what definition you use. They are a fundamental part of core journalism in Australia, particularly the SBS.

“Not doing deals with such organisations would not seem to align with the criteria for avoiding designation.

“Indeed, Facebook is clearly risking future designation under the NMBC.”