Activists from Google and Facebook have told a Senate committee they are willing to take major action if the Australian news media bargaining code comes, forcing the internet giants to pay news publishers to link to the their sites, come into force.
Google would have “no real choice” but to cut off Australian users completely from their main search engine, the company’s Australian managing director Mel Silva told the committee. Facebook representatives then said they would remove links to news articles from Australian consumer news if the code came into effect as it currently stands.
In response, the Australian government is not showing any regression, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg both saying they will not respond to threats.
So what’s going on here? Are Google and Facebook really willing to pull services from their Australian users instead of giving publishers some money under the bargaining code?
Facebook says news has little real value for its business. It does not make money from news directly and says that the average Australian consumer makes up less than 5 per cent of their news made up of links to Australian news.
But this is hard to square with other information. In 2020, the University of Canberra’s Digital News Report found that about 52 percent of Australians receive news through social media, and the number is growing. Facebook also boasts of its investments in news through deals with publishers and new products such as Facebook News.
Google likewise claims that it doesn’t make much money from news, while at the same time investing heavily in news products like News Showcase.
So while links to news like advertising money spinners may not be just for Facebook or Google, both see the presence of news as an important part of engaging audiences with their results.
While both companies are willing to give some money to news publishers, they want to make contracts on their own terms. But Google and Facebook are two of the largest and most profitable companies in history – and each has far more bargaining power than any news publisher. The news media bargaining code aims to remove this imbalance.
Moreover, Google and Facebook do not seem to want to accept the special social role of news, and public interest journalism in particular. And they don’t recognize that they could be involved in some way in the decline of the news industry over the past decade or two, instead pointing the finger at impersonal trends. in advertising technology.
The media bargaining code that is being introduced is far too systematic for them to want to accept. They would prefer to select and trade agreements with “genuine commercial considerations”, and not be bound by a set of one-size-fits-all settlement rules.
Google and Facebook control web browsing and social media, respectively, in ways similar to the big US monopolies of the past: railroads in the 19th century, then oil and telecommunications beyond. onwards in the 20th. These industries became the basic types of capitalist infrastructure for economic and social development. And all these monopolies required legislation to break them up in the public interest.
Unsurprisingly, the big ad-tech media platforms don’t want to follow the rules, but they have to admit that the sheer wealth and power comes with a moral responsibility to society. They must make the government accept that responsibility.
Online pioneers Vint Cerf (now VP and Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist) and Tim Berners-Lee (“Worldwide Internet Engineer”) have also submitted submissions to the committee. Senate pleads on behalf of the corporations. They argued that the code would break the internet “for free and open”.
But today’s internet is almost open and open: for most users “the internet” is a major corporate platform such as Google and Facebook. And these corporations don’t want Australian seniors to fit into their business model.
Independent senator Rex Patrick hit the nail on the head when he asked why Google would not admit that the fundamental question was about revenue, rather than technical details or questions of principle.
Google and Facebook are willing to join Senate committee processes, as long as they can change the configuration. They don’t want to be seen as a collaboration.
The risk of leaving (or as Simon Milner posted on Facebook, the “explanation” of why they would have done so) is the worst case scenario. It is likely that there would be a risk of losing large numbers of users if they did so, or at least not becoming less involved – thus bringing in less revenue. include advertising.
Google has already run small tests to test the removal of Australian news from scrutiny. This could be evidence that the risk of Australian withdrawal is severe, or at least brutal.
People know that news is important, that it shapes their interactions with the world – and gives meaning and helps them to lead their lives. So who would put Australians if Google and Facebook really follow? The government or the tech friendly giants they see every day? That’s harder to know.
For transparency, please note that the Conversation has also submitted a submission to the Senate inquiry into the Mandatory Negotiating Code of the News Media and Digital Platforms.