CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia will introduce landmark legislation to force Alphabet’s Google and Facebook to pay publishers and broadcasters for content next week, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Friday.
Australia is on course to become the first country to require Facebook and Google to pay for news content, legislation that is being closely watched around the world.
“The bill will now be considered by the parliament from the week commencing 15 February 2021,” Frydenberg said in an emailed statement.
With bipartisan support, the legislation - which Google says is “unworkable” and will force it to pull out of the country altogether - could come into law this month.
The acceleration of the bill came as a senate committee examining the proposals recommended no amendments.
Representatives for Google and Facebook did not immediately comment when contacted by Reuters.
The U.S. search and social media giants have pressed Australia to soften the legislation, with senior executives from both companies holding talks with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Frydenberg.
Google last week launched a platform in Australia offering news it has paid for, striking its own content deals with publishers in a drive to show the proposed legislation is unnecessary.
Last month Reuters said it had signed a deal with Google to be the first global news provider to Google News Showcase. Reuters is owned by news and information provider Thomson Reuters Corp.
Google and a French publishers’ lobby also agreed in January to a copyright framework for the tech firm to pay news publishers for content online, a first for Europe.
Thing is the LNP has to have news corp and 9media on their side to help them win elections, lest people realise their policies, politicians and practices are pernicious, even borderline illegal.
Thomas Murphy
Forcing Facebook and Google to follow basic principles regarding free speech (ie: you can't ban anything unless it's contrary to law) as well as regulating what they do with users data would objectively be a good thing.
Dialogue, transparency and openness are the bedrock of healthy societies.
Brody Murphy
Free speech is not enshrined in Australian law, and in the US they are private platforms: they can do what they want. No qualms on the data though, it should be fully transparent in collection and use, not to mention allow users more control over what data is collected/used.
Brayden Price
Australia has speech codes Facebook should follow. In the US they have unique protections that no other platform has.
Interesting that you are defending multibillion dollar corporations and their attempts to privately regulate speech. No?
Noah Price
>Conservatives still crying they have to follow basic social mores Fun fact, thanks to the Republican supreme court, they can do whatever they want to people who use the platform. Should have just baked the gay cake.
Ayden Adams
>basic principles regarding free speech (ie: you can't ban anything unless it's contrary to law) A more basic principle of free speech: Others can not force you to speak on their behalf.
You do not have to host any one else's speech, let alone the government's.
Julian Johnson
>the tried the same shit with youtube. and australia has no youtube anymore..
Well fuck me cunt, if we got no youtube down here how the fuck am I still able to watch the Big Lez Show on it?
Connor Reed
>Forcing Facebook and Google to follow basic principles regarding free speech (ie: you can't ban anything unless it's contrary to law) as well as regulating what they do with users data would objectively be a good thing. No it wouldn't. Private sites have a right to ban whatever users they like and consumers have a right to choose a platform that bans Nazis and other people and content they don't want to be around. Online communities couldn't exist otherwise. Should the Minecraft forums be forced to allow me to post goatse? Should I be able to spam this board with MLP porn? It's a violation of my free speech otherwise!
Or does protecting free speech only matter when it's to preserve conservative lies and propaganda?
Camden Thompson
Can you seppos stop making this about your politics? The bill is about making Facebook and Goggle pay for shit other people have to pay for, not crapping on about free speech and banning people for some yank wank or whatever the fuck.
Camden Johnson
No it isn't. It's about Rupert Murdoch not wanting his newspapers to give away news for free.
Michael Sanchez
No mate, the bill is about making Facebook and Google pay for access to news I myself have to pay for.
Is the whole thing steeped in Murdoch shenanigans? Fucking sure, but we're not discussing a bill that would put Facebook on the same level as myself by making Murdoch give us BOTH the news for free. If this bill fails I'd STILL have to pay for news if I want it from Murdoch while Facebook and Google would not.
This isn't an issue where there is a good guy, it's a bill being contested by a bunch of corporate cunts and suited shysters, but frankly, fuck boomerbook. Murdoch Media is collapsing into a blackhole of irrelevancy anyway, it'll collapse due to the sheer indifference the younger crowd has for old media, so I'd rather the bullets be used on the corporate monstrosity that is still going strong, not the one dying AIDS.
Ethan Russell
>Republicans are at fault for not baking a gay cake and now everything in the supreme court is their fault
Christopher Fisher
>If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both Title 18 section 241 It doesn't apply to corporations tho
Aaron Moore
Also doesn't apply to AUSTRALIA
How about you make like a flat eather and pretend that Australia, and by extension this thread, doesn't exist?
Aiden Howard
>Interesting that you are defending multibillion dollar corporations and their attempts to privately regulate speech. No? Except I'm not? It's a fact: they can do what they want with your posts as they occur on a private platform. They are not public fora.
Retarded Eastern Stater.
You literally don't know how this bill works, nor how the news service works. The search engines have snippets of news that direct traffic to sites. It would be quite easy for these sites to remove their content from google news but they don't, because it brings them significant visitation: michaelwest.com.au/governments-google-facebook-law-little-more-than-a-backrub-for-news-and-nine/ >Another barrier is the minimum annual revenue of $150,000 required to be able to participate in the scheme. It leaves out the majority of independent media operators, including those in the regions not owned by News Corp or Antony Catalano’s ACM.
This is literally a backrub for LNP corporate media supporters. Don't get me wrong, I don't like how Google or Facebook pay no tax (I don't like how News corp. was clandestinely moved to a US state [Delaware?] after receiving taxpayer handouts for regional papers), much like how I don't like the overt, consistent and relentless tax evasion many multinationals engage in. The fact is you don't know what you're talking about, end of.
>Australia has speech codes Facebook should follow Yet no laws that enshrine free speech. Best practice guidelines exist as only that, guidelines - they are not legally enforceable.
Also: Fuck Victoria and NSW, this is your Public Service Announcement for today.
Jace Phillips
>d.
For example, last month (December 2020*), 18.5% of visits to news.com.au came from Google. In other words, Google search drives one in five visitors to news.com.au by people clicking on links in Google search results. Yet News is claiming that Google should pay for using News’ content. As was pointed out by respondents to the ACCC recommendations, News and others can easily remove its content from Google (a single line of code takes care of it) but of course, they won’t.
>Republicans steal two seats for the supreme court >Why are Republicans to blame for rulings?
Parker Powell
Based. Whatever restricts corporate power is good.
Levi Perez
Would YouTube giving ad money to YouTubers cover this? And if so would this mean that YouTube wouldn't be allowed to demonetize videos anymore?
Julian Perez
>Would YouTube giving ad money to YouTubers cover this? I doubt it. Remember how they pushed the COPPA responsibility onto them?
Camden Ortiz
It was a 7-2 decision, meaning half of the Democrat picks sided with it
Liam Reed
I'm not sure I exactly understand this law. Is this essentially news organizations saying Google and Facebook can't aggregate their articles via their search engine and feed display? I get that both of the corporations really enjoy being able to feed curated news to people on their platform and by extension increase their viewer count because of it, but what's all this "force google and facebook to pay for news like the common man" mean? Are all news sources in Australia locked behind a paywall? Is it illegal to run your own news website there?
Elijah Hill
What does that have to do with anything? The demand isn’t “don’t censor news media” the demand is “if you want news media you have to pay for it” and facebook is simply declining to pay for something that benefits the media far more than it benefits facebook. If I’m going to charge $10 for my chrischan fanfic, it’s not censorship if no one elects to buy it. If I choose to put it up on a platform for free in hopes of someone actually reading it, it’s not theft for them to host it.
Samuel Jones
Can't beat Bing. Oooh boy. :p
Camden Cook
Largely speaking, yes - the only 'free' articles from our major news monopoly are heavily sponsored puppet content and they aggressively dominate the market - like this latest attempt at legislation
Carter Davis
It's best not to over-think the policy choices of the Australian Liberal party. Rupert Murdoch wants more money, and his puppets are more than happy to accommodate that because they want good coverage for a better shot at being elected again.
Chase Bennett
>Last month, Reuters said it had signed a deal with Google to be the first global news provider to Google News Showcase. Reuters is owned by news and information provider Thomson Reuters Corp. Will this mark the beginning of Reuters' transformation from being in the news to being in the "news" business?
Hudson King
I'm picturing an image of the Aussie gov guy giving a press speech about how Facebook and Google are bad, then leaning in behind the curtain and giving Microsoft two thumbs up.
Carter Rivera
>Treasurer Josh Frydenberg lambasted the company, saying the social media giant's 'actions were unnecessary, they were heavy-handed, and they will damage its reputation here in Australia' And the law they're proposing is none of those things?
>Google last week launched a platform in Australia offering news it has paid for, striking its own content deals with publishers in a drive to show the proposed legislation is unnecessary. But then the state won't have control over that content, which is the whole point of the legislation.
Nicholas Ward
It's amazing how Murdoch can make me side with Facebook and Google. Paying someone to let them advertise on your platform is ridiculous. Not to mention that if their problem is people only reading the Facebook summaries and not paying for the full article, their sites have similar summaries so they won't get any more subscriptions off of this.
Lucas Taylor
So, this just happened today:
Facebook banned all links to Australian news sites. Nobody can post links on any Facebook property that takes someone to an Australian news website.
Now, that just by itself is pretty fucking funny. No matter who you are in the world (In Australia or anywhere else), you can no longer post a link to an Australian news story hosted/composed/owned by an Australian media company.
Tune into the news and watch the meltdown in the AusFAILian parliament. They re lsing their shit by the bucket. Just watched some asshat of a fartclown screaming that Facebook isn't allowed to operate that way, that Face book HAS TO LINK TO AUSTRALIAN NEWS SITES
AND
They have to pay for posting those links.
Wrap your heads around that for a bit. Facebook chose the option under Australian law to NOT post links to Australian news sites, and Australia is losing its fucking shit over NOT having those links posted. And then forced to pay for posting links that Facebook doesn't want to post.
The assholes screaming about it in the parliament are hilarious. They got exactly what they demanded, and now the butthurt is so severe that they're bleeding out all over the place.
Easton Reed
This whole mess would have never happened if Moot were in charge.
Liam Brooks
It's sad that hating Big Tech out of principle is so "in" these days that shit like EU's DMA and this Aussie law are likely to come into effect without much scrutiny.
Camden Morgan
They need to ban Facebook like Uganda and Hungary.