Google is just being dishonest here. They are not "simply linking" but also showing important parts of the news on their own properties.
News content is interesting in a way that it is time bound in some sense. If we are not actively searching for a news topic, a concise blurb is good enough to keep us informed and updated. For these short evolving updates, social media posts can also do the same but a news organization (is expected and typically do) will research, confirm and vet the source before publishing and have certain trust among public.
When Google show links and a snippet of the content in real time, it is effectively acting as a combined alternate interface for the news sites.
I doubt Meta or Google will be too happy if there's a popular product that aggregates a stream of interesting snippets & images from its user's public social media posts in real-time especially if they are losing money because of it.
At the same time, Google as a search engine should be able to link to news sites and present those links if someone is actively researching a topic. But we know Google stopped being a proper search engine for a long time now.
