Australian Government to legislate theft

The ABC reports:

Facebook, Google and TikTok will be forced to fund Australian journalism regardless of whether they host it under a federal government plan to impose a new tax to push the tech platforms to make funding agreements with news organisations.

The tax, which could also apply to Apple and Microsoft, would be applied to the platforms’ Australian revenue, but can be reduced to zero if they sign agreements similar to those Google and Meta (the owner of Facebook) signed in 2021, including with the ABC.

This is outrageous legalised theft and blackmail.

Basically the argument was that social media companies unfairly profit from news media, and so a law was needed to force them to fund news media.

The social media companies said that actually they make a tiny amount from news media, and they’ll simply block news stories from their platforms.

Now the Australian Government has said they will pass a law that will force social media companies to hand cash over to news media companies, regardless of whether or not they carry any links to news media on their platforms.

This is truly repulsive. The social media companies should not give in to this blackmail, and instead announce that they will remove Google and Facebook etc from Australian access, if this law passes. 20 million pissed off Australians will turn against the Government for their brazen blackmail attempt.

The post Australian Government to legislate theft first appeared on Kiwiblog.