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The Australian government is going to force Meta and other tech companies to pay media
- The Australian government is proposing a new plan to force big tech companies to pay a charge to help fund journalism or enter into commercial deals with news organizations.
- The plan comes after a system introduced in 2021, the news media bargaining code, saw companies such as Google and Meta pay news organizations for journalism funding.
- Platforms that choose not to enter or renew commercial agreements with news publishers will pay the charge, and platforms with agreements will be able to offset their liability.
- The new plan is similar to a system with private health insurance: those without insurance pay a higher Medicare levy.
- The news bargaining code worked well for the first three years, but Meta announced it would not renew the news media contracts it had in place, while Google has contracts that have been renewed for at least a year.
- Only companies designated under the bargaining code have to comply, so the government is considering a different approach.
- The new approach is to say to big tech firms, “If you have contracts with news media businesses, then carry on. If you don’t, then you need to pay a charge.”
- The revenue from the charge will be used for public interest journalism or pay the news media businesses that would have been paid if they had deals with big platforms.
- This new approach is similar to an idea proposed in a submission to a parliamentary committee examining this and other online issues.
- The government will consult on creating a new system that requires big platforms to be subject to the new regime and has set a threshold where only platforms with Australian revenue above $250 million per year will be affected.
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