The Digital Publishers Alliance (DPA) has taken out full page ads across every Australian newspaper in response to Meta's decision to pull out of any future news funding rounds in the Australian market.

The ad, which appeared in The AFR, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on Monday, addressesd the lack of diversity in the Australian media landscape and notes the disproportionate effect Meta's decision would have on independent publishers.

DPA chair, Tim Duggan, said the advertisement "really worked at getting us attention."

“Dear Facebook” it read. “Australia needs more diversity in our media, not less”.

One of the group's key concerns, Duggan said, is that in the likely event the Government designates Meta under the News Media Bargaining code, the platform might totally block news for Australian consumers.

"If it happens it would be a devastating blow to small and independent publishers. Many of them derive sizeable revenue, audience and traffic from Meta products like Instagram and Facebook."

The other concern Duggan flagged was " for the state of our democracy when there’s no news on the main social platforms".

The DPA was launched in 2021, in the same year as the News Media Code was established to enforce tech giants like Meta and Google to pay Australian publishers for news content appearing on their platforms. According to the DPA, the Code's first funding round saw Meta's funding land disproportionately with legacy media, as most independent publishers had not been "invited to the table" when the regulation was drafted.

Duggan said the DPA will not let this happen again. "We are in for a long campaign to ensure that independents are heard, and have a seat at the table," he said. "This is just the opening round, and anything that we can do at this stage to put the plight of smaller publishers in front of government is beneficial."