The Albanese government today unveiled the strengthened “news bargaining incentive” to encourage deals between the platforms and Australian publishers.
Big tech companies will be made to cough up cash in deals with publishers and will be financially penalised if they don’t negotiate “in good faith” with news organisations.
“The news bargaining initiative will be a new addition to that code which will create a financial incentive for agreement-making between digital platforms and news media businesses in Australia,” Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said today.
“The offset arrangements will be struck at a level that ensure that digital platforms would pay less if they strike voluntarily agreements with news media businesses, than were they not to strike those agreements and subject themselves to the incentive charge.”
Jones said social media platforms will pay less than the fee if they strike deals with news publishers such as the ABC, News Corp, Guardian Australia and Nine, which is the publisher of this website.
He said the measure was designed “not to raise revenue” but to incentivise agreements between the likes of Meta and Google with Australian news outlets so publishers are paid instead of the federal government.
The new model will require digital platforms with Australian revenues of over $250 million to either pay the charge or facilitate deals.
This includes Meta, Google and ByteDance, the Chinese company which owns TikTok.
The new bargaining code will commence on January 1, 2025.
In a statement, Meta claimed the majority of its users do not come to its platforms for news content.
“We agree with the government that the current law is flawed and continue to have concerns about charging one industry to subsidise another,” a spokesperson said.
“The proposal fails to account for the realities of how our platforms work, specifically that most people don’t come to our platforms for news content and that news publishers voluntarily choose to post content on our platforms because they receive value from doing so.”
TikTok also said in a statement it has “never been the go to place for news”.
“We will actively engage in the consultation process and look forward to hearing more details,” a spokesperson said.
Existing laws in Australia designed to encourage tech companies to pay for news can be circumvented if platforms such as Facebook remove traditional media entirely from their site.
Meta has done just that in Canada, and reportedly has suggested it could do so in Australia.