Media shakedown

Newsroom's co-editor wants the government to shake down Facebook for a hundred million dollars to give to newsmedia, under threat that the government would impose worse regulations on Facebook if it didn't pony up the dough.

I'm not exaggerating.

Here's what Mark Jennings wrote:

The best thing the Government could do to help New Zealand media right now is to get the Prime Minister on a Zoom call with Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and ask him for $100 million.

In return for saving the New Zealand media, she agrees to let Zuckerberg off the hook that the Australian, French and other governments are planning to put him on by making Facebook pay for news content.

I know that things are pretty tough in the newsrooms, but asking the government to run a shakedown operation to fund you is not all that hot.