Australia’s government says it will introduce new laws to force big tech companies to pay local publishers for news.
The long-awaited decision sets out the successor to the world’s first law, which Australia passed in 2021, designed to pay giants like Meta and Google to host news on their platforms. .
Earlier this year Meta – which owns Facebook and Instagram – announced it would not renew payment agreements with Australian news outlets, sparking a standoff with lawmakers.
New rules announced on Thursday will require firms making more than A$250m ($160m; £125m) in annual revenue to enter into commercial deals with media organisations, or risk higher taxes.
The design of the scheme is yet to be finalized but it will apply to sites like Facebook, Google and TikTok.
Unlike the previous model, the new rules — called the News Bargaining Incentive — would require tech firms to pay even if they don’t enter into deals with publishers.
“Digital platforms benefit greatly financially from Australia and have a social and economic responsibility to contribute to Australians’ access to quality journalism,” Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said on Thursday.
The previous news media bargaining code saw news organizations negotiate commercial deals with tech giants, while firms such as Facebook and Google also pledged to invest millions of dollars in local digital content.
The regulation was intended to address what the government called a power imbalance between publishers and tech companies, while offsetting some of the losses traditional media outlets have suffered due to the rise of digital platforms.
As the deals under the arrangement were about to expire, Meta said it would not renew them, which would cost Australian publishers about A$200m in revenue.
Instead, Meta said it would kill its dedicated news tab on Facebook in Australia – which spotlights articles, and reinvest the money elsewhere.
“We know that people don’t come to Facebook for news and political content … less than 3 percent of what people around the world see in their Facebook feeds,” he said in a statement in February. News is made.”
The announcement sparked a backlash from Prime Minister Anthony Albany’s government, which called the move a “fundamental disregard” of Meta’s “responsibility to its Australian customers”.
“The risk is that misinformation will fill the void created by news on the platform,” Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said at the time.
The government said the new tax model starts in January 2025 and will be signed into law after parliament returns in February.