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The Australian government said on Thursday it will tax major digital platforms and search engines unless they agree to share revenue with Australian media organisations.
Under the proposed new rules, any Internet company that refuses to negotiate with publishers or removes news from its platform, such as Facebook owner Meta Platforms did it in Canada — would be forced to pay regardless, Reuters reported.
Meta blocked links to news in Canada in August 2023 to avoid paying commissions to media companies. Since then, Canada has become ground zero in Facebook’s battle with governments that have enacted or are considering laws forcing the internet giants to pay media companies for links to news stories published on their platforms.
In Australia, the tax would apply from Jan. 1 to tech companies earning more than A$250 million (C$227 million) a year in Australian revenue, said Deputy Treasurer Stephen Jones and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland.
They include Meta, the owner of Google Alphabet, and ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok.
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The tax would be offset by money paid to Australian media organisations. The size of the tax is not clear. But the government aims to make revenue sharing with media organizations the cheapest option.
“The real objective … is not to raise revenue – we hope not to raise any revenue. The real objective is to incentivize the deal between platforms and news media companies in Australia,” Jones told reporters.
The move comes after Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced it would not renew three-year deals to pay Australian news publishers for its content.
A previous government introduced laws called the News Media Dealings Code in 2021 that forced tech giants to enter into revenue-sharing deals with Australian media companies or face fines of 10% of their Australian revenue.
Meta said in a statement that the current law was flawed and that the US company continued to have “concerns about charging one industry to subsidize another.”
“The proposal ignores the reality of how our platforms work, namely that most people do not come to our platforms for news content and that news publishers voluntarily choose to publish content on our platforms because they get value from doing it.” said the statement.
Google raises doubts to get closer
Google has entered into revenue-sharing agreements with more than 80 Australian news companies in the past three years and has pledged to renew those agreements.
But Google has raised doubts about the government’s new approach.
“The government’s introduction of a targeted tax puts at risk the continued viability of commercial arrangements with news publishers in Australia,” Google said in a statement.
“We’re reviewing today’s announcement and will have more to say once we’ve assessed the full impact,” Google added.
TikTok pointed out that its users were not looking for news.
“As an entertainment platform, TikTok has never been the place to find news. We will be actively involved in the consultation process and look forward to hearing more details,” a statement from TikTok said.
“It is not a tax in the normal sense of the word”
Jones said Australian officials had explained the government’s intentions to their counterparts in the United States, where most of the digital giants are based. President-elect Donald Trump’s administration plans to raise tariffs against some countries, which could lead to trade wars.
“We want to make sure they understand the reasoning, also understand that this is not a tax in the normal sense of the word,” Jones said.
“This is an incentive to strengthen a law that has been in place in Australia since 2021.”
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Rowland said revenue sharing was necessary to safeguard Australian democracy.
“The rapid growth of digital platforms in recent years has disrupted Australia’s media landscape and is threatening the viability of public interest journalism,” Mr Rowland said.
“The policy intent here is very clear. It is to encourage agreements between digital platforms, search engines and Australian news publishers in order to support the health of our democracy.”
