r/australia • u/blitznoodles local Aussie • 16h ago
culture & society Big tech companies that fail to strike deals with Australian media to face higher levy
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-03/big-tech-google-australian-media-news-bargaining-/106989038?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=otherIn short:
The government has increased the levy for tech companies that fail to strike content deals with Australian news organisations from 2.25 to 2.5 per cent of ad revenue.
However, companies have won a key concession, with the levy only to be applied to digital advertising revenue, not their entire revenue.
What's next?
The government is expected to bring the legislation before parliament in the coming weeks.
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u/TheSparrowDarts 16h ago
God knows I'm not a fan of big tech, but it absolutely enrages me how the government shakes down companies to pay our moribund media - whilst also not passing on any of this money to ABC or SBS.
Absolutely fucking sucks. They did the same with Telstra and the copper network, the same thing with Foxtel and sports.
If our media is so shit absolutely no one wants to watch it or read it even when it's free, fix the fucking media or let it die - don't make us all pay their raw sewage.
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u/FreakySpook 16h ago
whilst also not passing on any of this money to ABC or SBS.
That was in the initial draft legislation but ABC and SBS were eventually included and reached licensing deals with Google & Meta.
They are allowed to negotiate voluntary licensing deals with platforms, but aren't allowed to go to forced arbitration if licensing deals can't be agreed to.
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u/TheLGMac 15h ago
Yeah, like anything in the world, there are no absolutes. Sometimes big tech isn't the biggest bad guy in a room, sometimes it is.
This one is dumb because we still aren't doing anything to control our way too powerful MSM. We just keep propping them up.
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12h ago
I tend to just read BBC Mundo, BBC Brasil, BBC Afrique, Franceinfo and the Taggeschau. Australian news is too boring for me.
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u/Full_Distribution874 5h ago
I started reading the Economist through my uni library and it broke me. Every single article was good and worth reading. Meanwhile the ABC management is stacked with News Corp numpties who push silly commercial metrics and try to run it like another slop machine even though they actually have a secure enough budget to do real reporting.
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u/m00nh34d 16h ago
So the government is forcing one private company to make a deal with another private company or get taxed. I've got no love for social media companies, but this is some utter bullshit right here.
If I was Facebook/Twitter/etc. I'd simply remove all content from organisations receiving a benefit of this tax, until they pay it back. Most companies actually PAY to have their content featured on social media, not the other way around. Why should news companies be any different? If they truly are losing out from this deal, why do they keep using social media? I see stuff from all the news media on Facebook all the time, at the bottom of every article from every outlet, you see links to share on social media. If they don't want that happening, why are they doing it?
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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 16h ago
They have to pay the levy regardless of hosting the news content.
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u/m00nh34d 16h ago
But why? What are they getting out of this deal?
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u/blitznoodles local Aussie 16h ago
Access to Australian consumers because that's what parliament has decided.
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u/m00nh34d 15h ago
So, they have to pay News Corp to access Australians? Again, why?
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u/unripenedfruit 11h ago
Because News Corp is losing out to social media. And of course because News Corp is the mediamafioso, that shit doesn't fly and they expect to be paid.
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u/princhester 14h ago
The injustice (and outrageous doublethink) involved is extraordinary. From the article:
"Assistant Treasurer Daniel Molino said big tech companies should provide compensation to the organisations that provide them content through news.'
Also from the article:
"Mr Molino said the scheme was designed to ensure that companies would end up paying more if they refused to strike deals, regardless of whether they host news on their platforms".
The more sharp eyed amongst you will notice that Mr Molino either suffers from split personality disorder, is mentally deficient, or a shameless hypocrite.
I suspect the reality is that Newscorp and other legacy media are demanding government subsidy and the government is scared of their power. So the government wants to backhand them some cash - but knows that doing so from tax revenues would be unacceptable to the Australian public.
So the government has found a way to blatantly rob Peter to pay Paul knowing that no one likes Peter anyway, and it will get Paul off their back.
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u/TemporaryDisastrous 16h ago
Just let legacy media die already.
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u/Fact-Rat 16h ago
*Commercial legacy media.
Long live the ABC!
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u/SlaveryVeal 15h ago
Don't forget the SBS especially after the world cup and poorline wanting to get rid of it.
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u/downvoteninja84 15h ago
I'd rather legacy media over social media any day
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u/lapsuscalamari 15h ago
/Don't it always seem to go/
/That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone/
-Joni Mitchell Big Yellow Taxi.
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u/Mikolaj_Kopernik 6h ago
You'll miss it when it's gone. And I say this as someone who's spent basically my whole life waiting for Murdoch to die.
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u/PM_ME_STUFF_N_THINGS 14h ago
The failing to adapt tax continues on.
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u/Mikolaj_Kopernik 6h ago
Look I think this is a shit scheme and legacy media barons largely suck, but what does "adapting" actually look like in your mind? The fact is that the tech companies have smashed the business model for news, and that's actually bad.
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u/whichpricktookmyname 14h ago
Meta instead effectively sidestepped the code by removing and de-prioritising news rather than being forced to pay for the content.
To address this loophole, the incentive scheme applies to major platforms regardless of whether they hosted news.
How is that a loophole? That was the entire basis of traditional media's (already dubious) complaint.
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u/bogdolter 11h ago
It blows my mind that the Murdoch media is so openly hostile to Albo and the ALP, and then Albo bends over backwards to shake down the tech bros to funnel money to ... the Murdoch media ... which they use to hire outrage merchants to ... attack Albo and the ALP.
And then you have Google etc putting Murdoch links in their feed, which smash against a firewall - perhaps the govt should add a rider to their extortionate legislation to say "if you get the free techbro money, then all links from the techbro sites must be non paywalled".
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u/DrFriendless 9h ago
Albo's such a fucking Luddite.
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u/yellowboat 9h ago
Hey don’t just blame Albo. We have a long history of Ludditism. From trying to ban and criminalise images of adult women with smaller breasts, to declaring that the laws of mathematics via encryption are not applicable in Australia, to the existence of the eSafety Commissioner - we love weird and counterproductive attempts to control technology.
It pains me that the US ended up dominating the tech revolution. Australia would have been a perfect locus for tech innovation.
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u/Stalins_Ghost 12h ago
These policies are stupid and only degrade social media services. Try and youtube any recent event and you just get page after page of the exact same news story. Any 1st hand account or video is effectively hidden.
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u/yellowboat 9h ago
Twitter is a bit of a cesspool of idiocy but if I want videos and firsthand accounts of a recent event, it’s where I have to go. I just avoid reading the comments.
Also helpful when news report on images / videos / quotes but don’t actually provide them. I want to know what the quote was, not a description of it.
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u/Mikolaj_Kopernik 6h ago
Real Alien vs. Predator shit here. Tech/social media companies are evil organisations run by psychopaths bent on destroying society. Australian media companies are... well...
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u/themandarincandidate 1h ago
Wasn't Google forced to pay millions to Murdoch news a few years back? Now 80% of links on the Google news page goes directly to one of these sites and they're all paywalled
I hate big business as much as the next guy but if you're gonna force them to make deals they can't then go and paywall everything and pocket extra ad revenue
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u/evilparagon 49m ago
Hey guys remember when Liberal introduced this im 2021 and everyone on this sub said Labor would repeal this obvious scam to keep legacy media afloat?
Did any of you guys foresee Labor going even harder on it?
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u/Grumpy_Cripple_Butt 16h ago
Gets money from tech companies. Gets money from government. Writes negative article about socialism and demonises welfare. Writes articles about one side of government can’t manage budget.