Australian Parliament Passes Law to Force Google, Facebook to Pay For News
- par Amanda Heroux
- dans Science
- — Fév 26, 2021
Frydenberg said he was pleased to see progress by Google and more recently Facebook in reaching commercial deals with Australian news businesses. "We have come to an agreement that will allow us to support the publishers we choose to, including small and local publishers", said Facebook vice president for global news partnerships Campbell Brown.
Their tussle began with an investigation by Australia's consumer watchdog into Google and Facebook's online advertising dominance, which has drained cash away from traditional news organisations. A last-minute amendment gave digital platforms one month's notice before they are formally designated under the code, giving the parties more time to broker agreements before they are forced to enter binding arbitration arrangements.
Australia on Thursday passed a world-first law aimed at forcing Google and Facebook Inc.to pay for news. Google and Facebook don't have unlimited resources to go around talking to everybody.
"Now Facebook managed to get some changes to the legislation, but basically they'll still be required to negotiate deals with publishers and that's the end goal".
Facebook has pledged to invest at least $1 billion to support journalism over the next three years as the social media giant defended its handling of a dispute with Australia over payments to media organizations.
Facebook has restored access to news for its Australian users after reaching agreement with the government on a landmark law requiring it and other tech firms to pay for journalistic content.
Facebook introduced its dedicated news tab to the United Kingdom earlier this year, where the company has paid the likes of Channel 4 News, Daily Mail Group, DC Thomson, Financial Times, Sky News and Telegraph Media Group for content.
The "arrogant and disgraceful" move - which also banned charity, health authority and emergency service pages - came after Australia's ground-breaking news media bargaining code passed the lower house of Parliament on February 17.
Facebook even shut down news pages in Australia last week in opposition to the legislation. The legislation was created to curb the outsized bargaining power of Facebook and Google in their negotiations with Australian news providers.
"What they haven't done, though, is pay for content, and that's what we've been trying to get them to do", he said.
Facebook, which relies less on news in its business model, responded on February 18 by blocking access to Australian news for all its users.
The new media code took days of backward and forward negotiations between Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerburg, and treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
All stories from Australian news publishers were blocked on Facebook last week after the country unveiled its new media regulations.
A source familiar with Facebook's plans told Reuters that the situation in Canada is different to Australia.
"Google and Facebook are excellent at dividing publishers and playing them off against each other", said Axel Voss, a center-right German member of the European Parliament who oversaw the copyright law's adoption.
Facebook has reversed its controversial ban on Australian news a week after removing millions of posts but not without warning content could be taken down again at anytime.
