The Albanese Government is reportedly set to crack down on social media giants, warning that they pay for news content or face financial penalties.
The News Media Bargaining Code, introduced in 2021 by Scott Morrison’s government, requires tech giants, like Meta and Google, to pay for the use of Australian news content on their platforms.
Initially, the code resulted in commercial agreements worth an estimated $70 million annually for Australian news publishers. However, in February this year, Meta announced it would not renew these deals, leaving the future of such payments in question. Google renewed but only for a year.
In a blog post, Meta said the move is part of “an ongoing effort to better align our investments to our products and services people value the most” and follows the axing of the Facebook News tabs in the UK, France and Germany last year.
The blog posted added: “While we’ll be deprecating Facebook News in these countries, this announcement does not impact the terms under our existing Facebook News agreements with publishers in Australia, France and Germany. These deals have already expired in the US and the UK.
“Additionally, to ensure that we continue to invest in products and services that drive user engagement, we will not enter into new commercial deals for traditional news content in these countries and will not offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future”.
Under the current news media bargaining code, The government can “designate” Meta, forcing the company to negotiate with media companies. Failure to comply could result in Meta facing fines amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite this provision, the government has yet to confirm whether it will take such action.
The Albanese Government is seeking to establish a new code upon a parliamentary inquiry finding the current system to be “broken”.
In response to the proposal, a spokesperson for Meta said: “The committee’s recommendations ignore the realities of how our platforms work, the preferences of the people who use them, and the value we provide news publishers who choose to post their content on our platforms.”
Speaking to ABC this morning, Albanese’s office said that they understand the interest in the issue. “We want a new deal to support good Australian journalism, and the news media bargaining code we inherited doesn’t do that job”.
A decision is expected to be reached today.
