Australia introduced bills on Tuesday that would tax tech giants Meta, Google and TikTok if they don’t voluntarily pay local media for shared news content. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
- Australia has proposed laws taxing Meta, Google and TikTok for unpaid news content.
- More than half of Australians get their news primarily through social media.
- Tech giants face mandatory tax of 2.25 per cent on Australian income.
Protection of traditional media
Traditional media companies around the world are fighting for survival as people increasingly get their information on social media. Australia’s University of Canberra found that more than half of the country’s population uses social networks as a source of news. Canberra therefore wants large technology companies to compensate local publishers for sharing their articles, which are also one of the sources of traffic on social platforms.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said tech giants Meta, Google and TikTok will be given the opportunity to strike content deals with local publishers. If they refuse, they face a mandatory tax of 2.25 percent of their income in the country, Albanese said.
Albanese: Journalism must have its financial value
“The big digital platforms cannot avoid their obligations under the media code,” he told reporters. “At the moment, there are three organizations – Meta, Google and TikTok,” he specified. The changes aim to close a loophole in the previous media law that allowed companies to avoid paying a fee if they removed the news section from their platforms.
The three firms were selected based on their sales in Australia and large user base in the country. “We support it so that (the mentioned technology giants) sit down at the table with media companies and conclude agreements,” the prime minister stated. Journalism, according to Albanese, must have its “financial value” and “it should not be possible for a large multinational company to take it over and use it to generate its profits without any compensation.”
There are Mety and Google
When Canberra proposed similar laws in 2024, Meta announced that Australian users would no longer be able to access the “report” folder. “News media voluntarily publish content on our platforms because it is beneficial for them,” a Met spokeswoman said in a statement to AFP.
Google noted that it already has agreements with more than 90 local media companies. It was the only technology company in Australia to do so. “While we are currently reviewing the bill, we have made it clear: we reject the need for this tax,” a Google spokesperson told AFP.
The draft laws were submitted for public debate on Tuesday, which will last until the end of May. Subsequently, it will be discussed by the parliament.
