Australian government announces plan to tax tech companies along with local news media organizations

According to Al Jazeera, the Australian government has revealed measures to tax large tech companies that do not share their profits with local news media outlets.

The action will take effect on January 1. According to Al Jazeera, IT giants like Meta and Google, whose income is located in Australia and exceeds 250 million Australian dollars (USD 160 million), must pay for content or risk a large tax charge that might reach millions.

The fast expansion of digital platforms has “disrupted” the media environment and is “threatening the viability of public interest journalism,” according to Australian Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, who made the statement Thursday, according to Al Jazeera.

“[Digital platforms] need to support access to quality journalism that informs and strengthens our democracy,” she said.

“The true goal is not to increase money; in fact, we wish to avoid doing so. Al Jazeera cited Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones as stating, “The true goal is to encourage agreement-making between platforms and news media businesses in Australia.”

As their material is made freely accessible on platforms, costing them valuable advertising money, the new regulations will help traditional media organizations who are struggling to survive. According to Al Jazeera, hundreds of Australian journalists have lost their jobs as a result of the current crisis.

“The News Bargaining Initiative will … will create a financial incentive for agreement-making between digital platforms and news media businesses in Australia,” Jones told CNN.

“We agree with the government that the current law is flawed and continue to have concerns about charging one industry to subsidise another,” a Meta representative told CNN after Jones’ declaration.

Meta said that it has agreements with a number of Australian companies, but that it would not extend them into 2024.

“The proposal fails to account for the realities of how our platforms work, specifically that most people don’t come to our platforms for news content and that news publishers voluntarily choose to post content on our platforms because they receive value from doing so,” the spokesperson stated to CNN.

According to Al Jazeera, Australia passed new legislation last month that forbids minors under the age of sixteen from using social media.

According to Al Jazeera, the Australian government is also considering sanctions for businesses who do not take action against misinformation and remove harmful material.