Australia to force tech giants to pay for news media

Australia on Thursday unveiled new proposals to force tech giants to pay Australian media organizations for the news that show up on their platforms.

Most people now consume the news published on a myriad of platforms like Google, Meta, and TikTok.

But tech organizations earn vastly more than the news media organization responsible for the news.

Canberra wants the companies to compensate publishers for their news links and pass on some of their advertising revenue to Australian media outlets.

How does the social media news tax work?

The tech giants will be taxed if they fail to make deals with local media.

The tax would apply from January 1 to tech companies that earn more than 250 million Australian dollars ($160 million, €152 million) a year in revenue from Australia, Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said.

"It is important that digital platforms play their part. They need to support access to quality journalism that informs and strengthens our democracy," Michelle Rowland said. 

"The real objective is not to raise revenue — we hope not to raise any revenue. The real objective is to incentivize agreement-making between platforms and news media businesses in Australia," Stephen Jones said. 

Jones said Google, ByteDance by way of TikTok, and Meta's Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp all fall under the scope of the charges. But X, formerly known as Twitter, does not fall under the code.

Tech companies push back against new proposals

The announcement was met with criticism from tech companies.

"The proposal fails to account for the realities of how our platforms work, specifically that most people don't come to our platforms for news content and that news publishers voluntarily choose to post content on our platforms because they receive value from doing so," a Meta spokesperson said. 

In 2021, Australia passed a law to make US tech giants compensate media companies for links that draw readers and generate ad revenue.

Meta then blocked users from reposting articles but eventually entered deals with Australian media firms. 

Meta has no plans to renew those agreements after 2024, it said.

Australia ramps up pressure on social media platforms

This is one of Australia's latest efforts to control big tech companies.

Last week, the country's lawmakers passed a new law that bans children under 16 from using social media. 

Canberra has also fined companies for failing to control offensive content and disinformation and plans to slap fines on companies that are unable to weed out scams.

tg/rm (AFP, AP, Reuters)