TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Taiwan media coalition held a press conference on Sunday, accusing online platforms such as Google and Meta of using local media content for free but monopolizing 70% of advertising revenue, leading to an imbalance in resources that threatens the domestic news industry.

To protest the inequality, 1,450 media professionals and academics signed a petition proposing two major reforms: negotiating content usage fees with major digital platforms, and a news fund from advertising revenue from major platforms to improve the domestic media environment, per PTS.

The media coalition also called upon the government to pass a "News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code," a bill lobbied for by media professionals in 2021 to create a news fund from major platforms to ensure the health of the local media environment and support in-depth reporting.

The Cabinet tasked the Ministry of Digital Affairs with drafting the bill, but it has yet to deliver. Media professionals allege such inaction represents the government's tolerance of an unfair playing field.

Chiu Chih-hsin (邱智鑫), secretary general of the Association for Terrestrial Television Networks Taiwan, said, "Only through institutionalized mechanisms can we promote reasonable profit sharing among content production platforms."

Lin Lih-yun (林麗雲), a professor at National Taiwan University's Graduate Institute of Journalism, said, "Google or Meta has taken away 70% of digital advertising, which will affect the livelihood of our media. This is a crisis for our entire society."

Media analysts said the failure to obtain “user payment” for content has led many media organizations to rely upon business sponsorship and project bidding to survive. This impacts the media industry supply chain and affects journalists.

Wang Wei-ching (王維菁), a professor at the Graduate Institute of Mass Communication at National Taiwan Normal University, said, “If the government continues to allow this unfair economic structure and does not take any policy action, it is the enemy of journalists, academics, and the entire news industry.”