HOUSTON: Social media giant, Facebook would spend at least $1 billion to license material from news publishers over the next three years.

Facebook is facing scrutiny from governments around the world over paying for news content that appears on their platforms, WSJ reported.

The spending plans are in addition to $600 million that Facebook paid since 2018 in deals with publishers like the Guardian, Financial Times and others to populate its Facebook News product in some countries, according to a blog post Wednesday by Nick Clegg, a senior Facebook policy executive.

Facebook’s new pledge is similar to a plan Alphabet Inc.’s Google announced last year to pay more than $1 billion to license news content for its Google News Showcase over a three-year period.

Facebook removed news from its platform in Australia last week as the country’s legislature debated a proposal that would have required Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to pay traditional media companies for their content.

Facebook reached a deal with the government Tuesday that would restore news to the platform in exchange for measures like additional negotiation with media companies before binding arbitration kicks in. The revised legislation cleared its last major parliamentary hurdle on Wednesday.