Meta spokesperson Andy Stone in a tweet said the Act fails to recognize that publishers and broadcasters put content on the platform because "it benefits their bottom line - not the other way around."

A similar Australian law, which took effect in March 2021 after talks with the big tech firms led to a brief shutdown of Facebook news feeds in the country, has largely worked, a government report said.

Since the News Media Bargaining Code took effect, various tech firms including Meta and Alphabet had inked more than 30 deals with media outlets, compensating them for content which generated clicks and advertising dollars, the report added.

(Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)