Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
13-12-2024
CANBERRA/ SYDNEY: Australia’s centre-left government on Thursday will unveil new rules that could impose fines on Big Tech companies if they refuse to continue to pay Australian media firms for news content hosted on their platforms, local media reported.
Under the proposed new rules, any internet company that refuses to negotiate with publishers or removes news from its platform, as Facebook-owner Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab did in Canada, would be forced to pay regardless, reports said.
Australia Communications Minister Michelle Rowland’s office, Meta and Google did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
Australia in 2021 passed laws to make the US tech giants, such as Alphabet’s Google, opens new tab and Meta, compensate media companies for the links that drive readers and advertising revenue to their platforms. The government has the power to set the fees if negotiations fail.
Meta struck deals with several Australian media firms including News Corp, opens new tab and national broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corp but has since said it will not renew those arrangements beyond 2024.
Meta, which also owns Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, has been scaling back its promotion of news and political content to drive traffic and says news links are now a fraction of users’ feeds. It has said it would discontinue a tab on Facebook promoting news in Australia. Australia’s parliament passed a law on Thursday to make Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc pay media companies for content on their platforms in reforms that countries such as Britain and Canada are looking to replicate. After robust negotiations in which Facebook blocked all news content in the 13th-largest economy, the vote makes Australia the first nation where a government arbitrator can set the price tech giants pay domestic media if private talks fail. “The code will ensure news media businesses are fairly remunerated for the content they generate, helping to sustain public interest journalism,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Communications 
Minister Paul Fletcher said in a joint statement. Facebook’s news ban, which also blacked out many nonprofit and government pages, including those of public health agencies promoting reliable information about COVID-19, would be lifted the following day, Frydenberg added in a radio interview, eight days after the measure took effect.
Representatives of both Google and Facebook did not immediately respond to media’s requests for comment.
The new law sets the stage for a dispute-handling process largely untested in corporate Australia, should negotiations between Big Tech and media companies fail. Its progress will be closely watched globally.
Both sides claimed victory after Australia offered Facebook some concessions, including government discretion to release the tech giants from arbitration if they can prove a “significant contribution” to the domestic news industry.
The revised code also allows the tech companies a longer period to cut media deals before the state intervenes. It will be reviewed within a year of taking effect, the joint statement said, but gave no start date. For months Facebook and Google threatened to pull core services from Australia if the law took effect but in the days before the vote, and before Facebook blocked news, Google struck some deals with publishers News Corp.
Several large Australian media companies, including Seven West Media, Nine Entertainment and the Australian Broadcasting Corp have said they were in talks with Facebook. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
