Technology giants such as Google and Facebook have been making money by setting up online platforms for the public to access news and information. The Australian government plans to implement new laws requiring these technology companies to pay local media for news content. Finance Minister Josh Frydenberg said Sunday (24) that the government plans to lead the world in regulating social media and companies that provide online search.
Australia’s parliament will debate the new law, if the two giant companies and the government can not reach an agreement, parliament will make the final arbitration, decided Google and Facebook to pay for the news media to provide content. The two companies earlier threatened to remove the Australian Google page, Facebook will remove all Australian users can originally see the news content in the social platform H dynamic page.
Google was earlier revealed that users entered specific search phrases, some of the relevant Australian news pages will be hidden, users can not get the corresponding news on the platform.
Finance Minister Feldenberg said the government has been working with local competition regulators for two years to study regulations that would require these tech giants to pay local news agencies. He said that these technology giants pointed out that if the proportion of clicks on the news media, only a small percentage of the total clicks on the content provided by the company, the cost will only be reflected in proportion to the decision of an independent arbitrator, said the two giants do not have to worry too much.
Feldenberg also pointed out that the government’s position is supported by media organizations and public opinion alone. Eighty percent of those polled said they were “annoyed” by the possibility of Australia’s search results being removed by the dot-coms. Feldenberg said, “It seems that these giants are only hurting their own interests by openly threatening to pull out of Australia last week, if Canberra insists that the legislation is passed. The bill has the support of all parties in Parliament.
Feldenberg added, “I think these giant companies inevitably have to pay for news content, the choice of Australians is to regulate technology companies to facilitate ‘when the world leader’, we can decide to lead the world, or other countries have such practices, we are also willing to follow.
Facebook believes that Australia’s regulation is “not feasible” in the current way, and asked the government to give the company a six-month grace period before the official implementation of the new law to continue discussions with the authorities.
Google said it can only accept arbitration with “reasonable gate-keeping” to ensure that the fees paid to news agencies are reasonable, but the company believes that the Australian model is flawed because the government only considers the costs of news agencies and ignores Google’s operations.
Facebook said earlier that news reports account for less than 5% of the content users see on their dynamic pages, and opposed the government’s legislation because of the lack of profits, but the Australian government believes that the media needs financial support to promote democracy, and there are reasons to legislate to protect the smooth operation of news agencies.
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