Australia just took a major step toward leveling the playing field between Big Tech firms like Facebook and Google and financially hard-hit media companies, setting what could be a critical precedent for other nations.
On Monday, Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced plans to force the digital behemoths to pay news and other media outlets for their content, as part of a mandatory “code of conduct” to be presented in July. The move came after “insufficient progress” on a voluntary code.
“It is only fair that the search engines and social-media giants pay for the original news content” they use, Frydenberg said. He cited data showing between 8 and 14 percent of Google search results include reports from news sites. Yet the digital platforms wind up with a huge share of online advertising bucks: Google gets 47 cents of every dollar; Facebook, 24 cents.
They can do that because they’ve cornered the market. An Australian panel found Google received 98 percent of all searches on mobile devices, and 17 million users logged onto Facebook (in a nation of 25 million people) for at least a half hour a day. That leaves media firms little leverage.
But it’s the media organizations that are paying the journalists and producing the stories Google and Facebook hoover up without spending a dime. These powerhouses profit off other people’s hard work. This is destroying news outlets; what will happen to democracy without a Fourth Estate to hold politicians and others to account?
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt media firms, like other businesses, a swift financial blow, with some scaling down or facing closure — even as the public is as dependent on reliable news as ever.
“For two decades, Google and Facebook have built trillion dollar businesses by using other people’s content and refusing to pay for it,” argued Chairman Michael Miller of News Corp Australia (which is part of the company that owns The Post), putting “at risk the original reporting that keeps communities informed.” All media (yes, including us) need and deserve fair pay for their work. Here’s hoping other nations follow Australia’s lead.
