San Francisco, Feb 25 (IANS): Facebook has announced it will invest $1 billion more over the next three years in Australia to support the news industry.

The social network has already invested $600 million since 2018 to help the local news publishers and content platforms.

The new $1 billion commitment is matches the one Google made in October last year, announcing that the search engine giant would start paying publishers to create content for its News Showcase platform.

"Facebook is more than willing to partner with news publishers. We absolutely recognise quality journalism is at the heart of how open societies function — informing and empowering citizens and holding the powerful to account," Facebook global policy chief Nick Clegg said in a statement on Wednesday.

Last month, Facebook announced deals with The Guardian, Telegraph Media Group, Financial Times, Daily Mail Group, Sky News and many more, including local, regional and lifestyle publishers, to pay for content in its Facebook News product in the UK.

The Facebook News tab is where you can find headlines and stories next to news personalised to your interests.

Similar deals have been reached with publishers in the US, and Facebook is in active negotiations with others in Germany and France.