French newspapers have banded together to take social platform X to court, accusing it of skirting a law that requires digital platforms to pay for reusing news content.
Heavyweights like Le Monde, Le Figaro, Le Parisien, and Les Echos are leading the suit, joined by other publications including Telerama, Courrier International, and Nouvel Obs, according to statements shared with Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Their claim: X, formerly known as Twitter, has refused to negotiate fair compensation for previews of their articles.
Under a European “neighboring rights” directive, platforms that show snippets or previews of news are expected to pay publishers for that usage. France was the first EU country to put this law into action in 2019, leading to agreements between news publishers and tech giants like Google and Meta. But X has held out, asserting that its content is user-driven and not directly posted by the platform, unlike Google’s search engine or Facebook’s News Feed.
Public broadcaster France TV reported that a French lawyer for X argued in court that the directive doesn’t apply to X due to its reliance on user-generated content.
This isn’t the first time French media has tried to get compensation from X. Back in May, a Paris court ordered X to provide financial data to French media companies, giving them insight into how much the platform might be making from sharing article snippets. But X has reportedly ignored that ruling, pushing French newspapers to escalate their legal efforts.
X’s reluctance to comply is no surprise, given that owner Elon Musk has been vocal on the matter. Last year, he tweeted a response to French news agency AFP’s demand for payment, writing: “They want us to pay “them” for traffic to their site where they make advertising revenue and we don’t?!” Musk’s stance emphasizes the position that, unlike Google and Meta, X doesn’t profit directly from shared news, and therefore doesn’t owe publishers anything.
The outcome of this lawsuit could set a precedent across Europe. As part of a larger effort to safeguard news media’s revenue against the influence of tech platforms, France has positioned itself as a test case for the EU’s neighboring rights. Google and Meta have agreed to compensate French publishers, but X’s refusal to cooperate has left French media seeing red—and now, they’re taking it to court.
