Australia obliges Google, Meta and TikTok to pay local media for news

The Australian Parliament has passed a new law that should force the largest technology platforms to fund local media. Google, Meta, TikTok and other companies will have to enter into paid agreements with Australian publishers or pay a special levy on advertising revenue.

The new mechanism is called the News Bargaining Incentive. It applies to large search and social platforms whose advertising revenue in Australia exceeds 250 million Australian dollars.

Among the companies potentially covered by the new rules are Alphabet, owner of Google, Meta, TikTok, and the professional network LinkedIn owned by Microsoft.

Platforms will have to negotiate with at least eight publishers

The main goal of the law is not to collect an additional tax, but to push technology companies to enter into commercial agreements with newsrooms. To reduce or avoid the payment, a platform must enter into agreements with at least eight different Australian publishers.

After amendments made in parliament, the levy rate for companies that do not conclude a sufficient number of agreements was raised to 2.75% of their digital advertising revenue in Australia. The proceeds will be channeled back into the Australian news sector to support journalism.

At the same time, technology companies' expenses under commercial agreements with media will be counted when calculating their obligations. More favorable conditions are provided for small and medium-sized newsrooms so that platforms do not limit themselves to agreements exclusively with the largest media groups.

Australia closes the loophole of the previous law

The new rules are a continuation of Australia's News Media Bargaining Code, adopted back in 2021. This mechanism led to the conclusion of dozens of agreements between Google and Meta and local media and brought hundreds of millions of dollars to the news industry.

However, the previous system had a significant drawback: a technology platform could try to avoid obligations by simply limiting the distribution of news on its services. This is exactly the possibility the government decided to eliminate.

Now the obligation of a large platform to financially participate in supporting journalism should not directly depend on how actively it shows news to users. The government explains the reform by the need to ensure more sustainable funding for journalism of public importance.

Canberra also expects that the new mechanism will support regional outlets, small newsrooms and media working with underrepresented audiences.

Australia has for several years remained one of the most active countries in regulating relations between traditional media and large technology platforms. Other countries are closely watching the Australian model, ones that are also trying to get Google, Meta and other companies to compensate publishers for the use and distribution of news content.

Based on materials from: Australian government, SBS News