The Australian government wants to take 2.25% of Meta, Google, and TikTok’s local revenue and hand it to legacy news publishers. The platforms can avoid the bill by signing commercial deals with those same publishers. Either way, money moves from the companies people actually use to read and share information, into the bank accounts of the established media class.
The draft legislation is called the News Bargaining Incentive. The word “incentive” is an odd choice. A levy you can only escape by paying a private third party is a tax with extra steps, and the third party has been chosen for you. Australian Community Media, Nine Entertainment, News Corp Australia, and the public broadcaster ABC sit at the front of the queue.
Communications Minister Anika Wells announced the plan in Sydney on Tuesday. “People are increasingly getting their news directly from Facebook, from TikTok and from Google, and we believe it’s only fair that large digital platforms contribute to the hard work of journalism that enriches their feeds and that drives their revenue,” she said.
The idea treats the act of users sharing links as a form of theft from publishers, rather than what it actually is, which is people choosing to talk about the news on the platforms where they spend their time.
Hellbound and Down 