Australia Moves to Force Google and Facebook to Compensate Media Outlets
Guessing this is the article you meant to post. Thanks, it has some opinion not in the one i posted earlier (at bottom).
The decision, announced after talks on a voluntary system stalled, is part of a global push to save local news organizations.
Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive. A spokesman said the company “sought to work constructively” with the news industry in Australia. Jim Wilson/The New York Times
MELBOURNE, Australia — The Australian government said on Monday that Google and Facebook would have to pay media outlets for news content in the country, part of an emerging global effort to rescue local publishers by moving to compel tech giants to share their advertising revenue.
The decision to mandate compensation for news articles displayed on Facebook pages or in Google search results — important drivers of traffic for those platforms — comes as the coronavirus pandemic accelerates years of advertising losses at media outlets large and small.
“We can’t deny the importance of creating a level playing field, ensuring a fair go for companies and the appropriate compensation for content,” Josh Frydenberg, the country’s treasurer, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the public broadcaster, on Monday.
He said the government had decided to issue binding rules after talks with Google and Facebook on a voluntary system stalled.
“We won’t bow to their threats,” Mr. Frydenberg told reporters in Canberra, the capital. “This is a big mountain to climb. These are big companies that we’re dealing with, but there’s also so much at stake that we are prepared to fight.”
“We’re disappointed by the government’s announcement,” Will Easton, the managing director of Facebook Australia and New Zealand, said in a statement. He said the company had invested millions of dollars to support local Australian publishing “through content arrangements, partnerships and training.”
Gustaf Brusewitz, a spokesman for Google in Australia, said in a statement that the company had “sought to work constructively with industry” and would continue to do so under the new mandatory rules, which are set to be unveiled in July.
“Since February, we have engaged with more than 25 Australian publishers to get their input on a voluntary code,” he said.
“We won’t bow to their threats,” Australia’s treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, said of large companies like Facebook and Google. Lukas Coch/EPA, via Shutterstock
Journalism experts said they hoped Australia could help lead the way with rigorous enforcement.
“This is going to have executives in Facebook and Google hunched around a boardroom table for many, many weeks figuring out how they are going to cope with the inevitable cost,” said Monica Attard, the head of journalism at the University of Technology Sydney.
She said that while Australia’s decision could lay the groundwork for other governments to “go after the tech giants,” its success would depend on the details of how the digital platforms were required to pay media outlets.
“Governments around the world have actually been struggling with this issue for many, many years,” Professor Attard said. “I’m not sure this decision gets us to a final point,” she added, “but it’s something.”
“I don’t think it will be enough to challenge the many issues that exist in the media landscape in Australia,” said Alix Foster Vander Elst, a campaign director at GetUp!, an activist group that calls for a more participatory democracy and press freedom.
She said it was crucial to increase government funding to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which delivered vital notices during Australia’s unprecedented bush fires .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/world/australia/fires-size-climate.html .. in recent months, and now during a pandemic.
Ms. Foster Vander Elst said it was disappointing that it had taken the closing of dozens of papers owned by Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media magnate, to have Australia’s government step in over the collapse of the country’s local media.
It’s “a welcome first step,” she said, “but there’s so much more that needs to be done.”
That second last paragraph, i think, is the crucial clue to why the Morrison conservative government has taken this step now. Murdoch remains virtually crucial to electoral success in Australia.
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