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Summary
- The US urges Australia to ditch the proposed media laws to impose Facebook and Google with mandatory charges.
- The proposed laws have garnered strong political support and will empower the traditional media outlets with a bargaining power with tech giants.
- Google and Facebook are opposing the laws and fearing a global trend.
The US has sent a submission to an Australian parliamentary inquiry urging the Australian government to scrap the media laws which will force the mega tech companies Google and Facebook to pay for sharing content from local media organisations.
Hinting towards a counter US-Australia free trade deal, the US mentioned that the proposed legislation is fundamentally imbalanced, besides being impractical and unreasonable.
Source: Megapixl
The proposed laws have strong political support in Australia. They were tabled in the Australian parliament in December last year, and it is presently before a senate committee. As per these laws, the tech companies will have to pay a mandatory payment if Australian media companies and these tech companies could not agree on payments.
This law that is being floated would be the first of its kind in the whole world that force the internet behemoths to pay for news sourced from regional media houses.
The US suggested that it is better for Australia to conduct a deeper market study to analyse a specific market failure and address that first through a code. The US has also labelled the act as preferential treatment to Australian media.
Source: Megapixl
Facebook, Google oppose the laws: Amid the ongoing legal processes, the tech companies are fearing a global trend stemming against them. Both the tech titans have opposed these laws. The mega search company, Google launched a campaign against these laws and encouraged its users to show opposition through yellow warning signs, while Facebook warned to block Australians from sharing news.
Also read: ACCC indicates potential legal cases against Facebook, Apple, and Google over ‘ad tech’
The background
The government proposed the laws in December following a study that suggested that the tech giants' superpower status in the media industry is a threat to the smooth functioning of democracy. Three years ago, the Australian government had directed ACCC to look into Facebook and Google's impact on the state of competition in advertising and media.
The 18-month long investigation statement reported huge power imbalance between these large digital platforms and the local media companies. The world's eyes are on the country's landmark legislation which could set a global trend.
ACCC, in its initial report two years back had raised concerns on the dominant market power of these companies and their impact on Australian media businesses which struggled hard to monetise their content. The report highlighted that the country's traditional print media had lost its advertising revenue due to these digital platforms.
On 31 July 2020, the Australian regulatory authority, ACCC had released media codes for public consultation. The laws will empower local media outlets to bargain with Google and Facebook over payment of news.
