Australia forces tech giants to pay for news
The Australian government has announced that it will introduce new rules forcing big tech companies like Meta and Google to pay for hosting news on their platforms.
The long-awaited decision sets out a successor to a world-first law that Australia passed in 2021, which was designed to make giants like Meta and Google pay for hosting news on their platforms.
Earlier this year Meta – which owns Facebook and Instagram – announced it would not renew payment deals it had in place with Australian news organisations, setting up a standoff with lawmakers.
The new rules, announced on Thursday, will require firms that earn more than A$250m ($160m; PS125m) in annual revenue to enter into commercial deals with media organisations, or risk being hit with higher taxes.
The design of the scheme is yet to be finalised but it will apply to sites such as Facebook, Google and TikTok. Meta, in a statement released on Thursday, expressed concern that the government “charged one industry to subvention another”. The News Bargaining Incentive, a new model that was introduced on Thursday, will force tech companies to pay if they don’t enter into deals with publishers.
“Digital platforms receive huge financial benefits from Australia and they have a social and economic responsibility to contribute to Australians’ access to quality journalism,” Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said on Thursday.
The previous News Media Bargaining Code saw news organisations negotiate commercial deals with tech giants, while also committing firms like Facebook and Google to invest millions of dollars in local digital content.
That code aimed to address what the government called a power imbalance between publishers and tech companies, while offsetting some of the losses traditional media outlets have faced due to the rise of digital platforms.
As deals brokered under that arrangement neared expiry, Meta said that it would not be renewing them, leading to a roughly A$200m loss in revenue for Australian publishers.
Instead, Meta said it would phase out its dedicated news tab – which spotlights articles – on Facebook in Australia, and reinvest the money elsewhere.
“We know that people don’t come to Facebook for news and political content… news makes up less than 3% of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed,” it said in a statement in February.
The announcement prompted a strong response from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government, which described the move as “a fundamental dereliction” of Meta’s “responsibility to its Australian users”. The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government reacted strongly to the announcement, calling it a “fundamental dereliction” of Meta’s “responsibility to its Australian users”. The new taxation model will begin in January 2025 and be enacted into law once parliament returns to session in February.
