Melbourne, Australia — Australia proposes taxing digital giants metaGoogle and TikTok pay a portion of their revenue to news reporters.
The government released draft legislation on Tuesday, which it intends to introduce to parliament by July 2, that would give social media companies financial incentives to strike deals with news organizations to pay for journalism.
Criticisms of the platforms also included that the proposal was a “digital services tax” that misunderstands the evolving advertising industry and would fail to provide a sustainable news sector.
australian prime minister Anthony Albanese He said there is a need to attach a monetary value to the work of journalists.
“It should not just be taken over by a large multinational corporation and used to generate profit for that organization without proper compensation for the people who produce that creative content,” Albanese told reporters.
“We believe investing in journalism is vital to a healthy democracy,” he said.
This is Australia’s second legislative attempt to make platforms pay for the Australian news text and images their users see.
Digital platforms were pressured to strike deals with Australian news publishers to pay for journalism by legislation passed in 2021 that created the country’s News Media Bargaining Code.
The platforms opted to make commercial deals with news creators rather than be forced into arbitration and have the price set by a judge.
But they have since avoided renewing those deals by removing the news from their services.
The proposed news bargaining incentive would charge major platforms that choose not to make commercial deals with news publishers a 2.25% tax on their Australian revenues.
The government said that if the platforms agreed to pay publishers for journalism they would be given an offset and their overall costs would be reduced.
The government expects the stimulus to raise between 200 to 250 million Australian dollars ($144 million-$179 million) per year. This was approximately the same amount that platforms paid news outlets when the News Media Bargaining Code was operating at its peak.
Communications Minister Anika Wells said the government will distribute that income among news organizations based on how many journalists each organization employs.
Tax will be applicable on meta platformWho owns Facebook and Instagram? Googlewhich is owned by Alphabet Inc., and tiktokMost of which is owned by US-backed investors.
Opposing the proposed legislation, Meta said that news organizations “voluntarily post content on our platforms because they get value from doing so.”
“The idea that we own their news content is simply wrong. This proposed law, which would apply to platforms regardless of whether the news content appears on our services or not, is nothing more than a digital services tax,” Meta said in a statement.
Meta said, “Government-ordered transfers of wealth from one industry to another, with no relation to exchange value, will not provide a sustainable or innovative news sector. Instead, it will create a news industry dependent on a government-administered subsidy scheme.”
“We reject the need for this tax,” Google said.
A statement from Google said, “It ignores the fact that Google already has commercial agreements with the news industry, misunderstands how the advertising market has changed, and mandates payments from some companies while arbitrarily excluding platforms like Microsoft, Snapchat and OpenAI – despite major changes in the way people consume news.”
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
All targeted platforms are American. American critics have argued that Australia’s news media bargaining code has disproportionately harmed American corporations.
Albanese was not concerned about a possible reaction from the United States.
“We are a sovereign nation and my government will make decisions based on the Australian national interest,” Albanese said.
