By 2022, the News Media Bargaining Code dramatically increased the competitive disadvantage on small/medium publishers in Australia. With Facebook & Google controlling 50% of the advertising revenue of the world, many smaller news platforms simply couldn't outbid the giant news publishers.

On top of that, there was little incentive for Meta or Facebook to pay for the journalism their businesses were benefiting from. We needed to create enough pressure to increase awareness about the problem and ultimately get Meta and/or Google back to the negotiating table with publishers.

A collective of independent publishers in Australia came together to get the attention of both the tech companies, our politicians, and the public.

Over 50 independent platforms did a news freeze, and refused to publish anything other than our message. The lack of independent news, became the news.

Showing up across owned, earned, shared and paid media, we used Zuck's infamy as a hook to explain the situation and attempt to reach Josh Frydenberg and the Department of Treasury to get a better deal for smaller publishers.

The message was unmissable. 50+ publishers collaborators. 45 Media collaborators. 2 Large format billboards. 7.2k Unique web visitors. Hundreds of thousands reached across Australia, and most importantly, over 500 emails to Josh Frydenberg.

The campaign became globally significant and secured a multi-million dollar deal for dozens of independent publishers.