Google threatens to shut down search in Australia over digital news code

[garbon]

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jan/22/google-threatens-to-shut-down-search-in-australia-if-digital-news-code-goes-ahead

Google and Facebook are fighting legislation that would force them to enter into negotiations with news media companies for payment for content

Google has threatened to remove its search engine from Australia and Facebook has threatened to remove news from its feed for all Australian users if a code forcing the companies to negotiate payments to news media companies goes ahead.

The move would mean the 19 million Australians who use Google every month would no longer be able to use Google Search, and 17 million Australians who log into Facebook every month would not be able to see or post any news articles on the social media site.

The two companies are fighting against legislation currently before the parliament that would force the digital platforms to enter into negotiations with news media companies for payment for content, with an arbiter to ultimately decide the payment amount if no agreement can be reached.

On Friday, Google delivered an ultimatum to the government, saying it would not be viable to continue offering search in Australia if the code goes ahead.

The company's Australian managing director, Mel Silva, told a Senate committee the proposed news code was untenable and would set a "dangerous precedent" for paying for links.

"The principle of unrestricted linking between websites is fundamental to search and coupled with the unmanageable financial and operational risk if this version of the code were to become law, it would give us no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia," she said.

"Withdrawing our services from Australia is the last thing that Google want to have happen, especially when there is another way forward."

Silva said the company wanted to make changes to the code to make it "workable", and the company was keen to enter into agreements with media companies to pay for content, pointing out around 450 deals have been made with media companies around the world.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, said at a press conference in Brisbane the government would not respond to threats.

"Let me be clear. Australia makes our rules for things you can do in Australia. That's done in our parliament. It's done by our government. And that's how things work here in Australia and people who want to work with that, in Australia, you're very welcome.

"But we don't respond to threats."

Reset Australia, an organisation that is lobbying for the regulation of big tech companies, said Google was bullying Australia.

"Today's egregious threats show Google has the body of behemoth, but the brain of brat," the executive director, Chris Cooper, said. "When a private corporation tries to use its monopoly power to threaten and bully a sovereign nation, it's a surefire sign that regulation is long overdue."

Representatives from Facebook repeated the company's previous threat to pull news content from user feeds. Josh Machin, Facebook's head of public policy in Australia, said if the code goes ahead, Facebook would potentially prevent not just news companies from posting links to news articles on Facebook, but all users based in Australia.

Machin said news articles make up under 5% of what the average user sees in their feed, and Facebook did not get much commercial benefit from news articles posted on Facebook.

When asked whether Facebook profited from fake news posted on the platform, Machin said no commercial benefit was gained by Facebook on its users posting fake news.

The Guardian Australia managing director, Dan Stinton, told the committee the claims were misleading because news content keeps users engaged on Facebook.

"The way you advertise on Facebook is within the Facebook newsfeed and news content does provide at least some of the engagement that the Facebook newsfeed delivers," he said.

"So I'm surprised that they say they see no value in journalism within the Facebook newsfeed."

Australia's competition watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, developed the code. Its chair, Rod Sims, told the committee what was being lost in the debate was the code was not simply a requirement for Google and Facebook to pay per click for news articles.

"Discussions we are aware of have focused on paying upfront lump-sum amounts, not per click," he said.

"What this code does is it gives the possibility of arbitration, which I suspect won't be used that often, but that possibility evens up the bargaining process. This is really the only way we can get commercial deals."

...

Guardian's stance on this is clear.

[The Brain]

What would the crazies do without big tech to whine about?

[Zoupa]

What would the crazies do without big tech to whine about?

Post 35 times a day on an obscure forum, like a desperate time-waster, trying to connect through inane jokes day after day?

[The Brain]

What would the crazies do without big tech to whine about?

Post 35 times a day on an obscure forum, like a desperate time-waster, trying to connect through inane jokes day after day?

Nah. Sounds unlikely.

[Grey Fox]

While threatening to leave Australia, google signs deal with France. Call their bluff, Australia.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/google-agrees-to-pay-french-news-sites-to-send-them-traffic/

In the past, Google's hardball tactics deterred most European countries from trying to force Google to pay up. But with the passage of the EU copyright directive, European countries formed a united front against Google, making it much harder for Google to resist. Google's capitulation in France will weaken its bargaining position as other European countries pass their own versions of the French law and news organizations in other countries line up for their share of Google cash.

[crazy canuck]

What would the crazies do without big tech to whine about?

Post 35 times a day on an obscure forum, like a desperate time-waster, trying to connect through inane jokes day after day?

Nah. Sounds unlikely.

That is reserved for us sane folks. The crazies need to find something else to do.

[garbon]

Facebook's blackout didn't launch so well.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/18/facebook-blocks-health-departments-charities-and-its-own-pages-in-botched-australia-news-ban

Facebook's botched Australia news ban hits health departments, charities and its own pages

The Bureau of Meteorology, state health departments, the Western Australian opposition leader, charities and Facebook itself are among those to have been hit by Facebook's ban on news in Australia.

On Thursday morning Facebook began preventing Australian news sites from posting, while also stopping Australian users from sharing or viewing content from any news outlets, both Australian and international.

The social media giant said it made the decision in response to the news media bargaining code currently before the Senate, which would force Facebook and Google to negotiate with news companies for payment for content.

While the ban was only meant to target Australian news publishers, dozens of pages run by key government agencies, community pages, union pages, charity organisations and politicians were also blocked for several hours.

Australia's main source of weather information, the Bureau of Meteorology, said on Thursday morning that it had been blocked, and was advising users to go to its direct website, app or Twitter page.

As Australia prepares to begin the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, state health departments, including SA Health and Queensland Health, were unable to post.

St Vincent's Health in Melbourne said it was "extremely concerning" its Facebook page had been blocked "during a pandemic and on the eve of crucial Covid vaccine distribution".

Health minister Greg Hunt said he was "profoundly shocked" that health organisations, including Bowel Cancer Australia and the Kids Cancer Project had been affected.

...

[Tamas]

Well, I mean, isn't that in line with the law? Facebook is supposed to pay if they want to publish news and articles from other sources. They don't want to pay so they don't publish news and articles.

[garbon]

Well, I mean, isn't that in line with the law? Facebook is supposed to pay if they want to publish news and articles from other sources. They don't want to pay so they don't publish news and articles.

Well actually there is no law in place yet. This was their preemptive move ahead of the law.

I'm not sure why updates from cancer charities or state health depts would fall under news publishers that facebook thought they would need to pay. And in fact, I don't think they did as later in the article they note that some of the state health dept pages have gone back up.

[Zanza]

Spanish Google News has been deactivated for years due to this. There is a law in Germany that would force Google News to pay content creators, but they have to make the claim for that individually, meaning Google will then just remove that particular site. So it is not used much due to Google's market power.

If there is political will to redistribute profits between content creators like news organisations and aggregators like Google and Facebook, I do not see why not. Especially considering their quasi monopoly status. Might of course result in them just not offering their service anymore.

[Sheilbh]

I think there is a slight difference between Facebook and Google though in that Facebook - to the best of my knowledge - doesn't have a news aggregator. People and media companies post stories to Facebook, which is different than Google News.

I have more sympathy for Facebook on this (which is rare) than Google because I think they are more another distribution channel for news media, rather than a platform that is hoovering up and aggregating stories in the way Google does.

I agree there's no need to cut off the police or charities, but I do think it's actually a legitimate possible strategy for Facebook globally to get out of news. It's causing them a lot of PR and reputational issues and it may be putting people off the platform if they are seeing lots of political stories and news etc. I think they might try to pivot back to people planning parties, sharing cute videos of pets and kids etc.

Spanish Google News has been deactivated for years due to this. There is a law in Germany that would force Google News to pay content creators, but they have to make the claim for that individually, meaning Google will then just remove that particular site. So it is not used much due to Google's market power.

If there is political will to redistribute profits between content creators like news organisations and aggregators like Google and Facebook, I do not see why not. Especially considering their quasi monopoly status. Might of course result in them just not offering their service anymore.

Yeah - there's a few laws doing the rounds in different bits of the world that are taking aim at this. I think that may be why Google is starting to negotiate is it knows this is coming everywhere and they want to almost control what the outcome looks like.

I think there is a big wider issue of when these platforms provide what could be considered an essential communication network or a platform that is in some way essential to the delivery of a state service. So I think there's a strong argument that the state should be able to mandate certain communications are carried - for example a police alert, or a weather system alert in a crisis moment. The other side is what we've seen in Europe with contact tracing apps where the design of how the state and public health authorities use apps to support contact tracing has been decided by Google and Apple. I think that's something, after the crisis, that states may circle back to - I know there's appetite in France and also some comments from Germany.

[garbon]

I think there is a slight difference between Facebook and Google though in that Facebook - to the best of my knowledge - doesn't have a news aggregator. People and media companies post stories to Facebook, which is different than Google News.

I have more sympathy for Facebook on this (which is rare) than Google because I think they are more another distribution channel for news media, rather than a platform that is hoovering up and aggregating stories in the way Google does.

I agree there's no need to cut off the police or charities, but I do think it's actually a legitimate possible strategy for Facebook globally to get out of news. It's causing them a lot of PR and reputational issues and it may be putting people off the platform if they are seeing lots of political stories and news etc. I think they might try to pivot back to people planning parties, sharing cute videos of pets and kids etc.

I'd be fine if they decided to exit news game but they certainly are in the mix. They even have products/services specifically for news publishers:

https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/help/377680816096171?id=644465919618833

[Sheilbh]

I'd be fine if they decided to exit news game but they certainly are in the mix. They even have products/services specifically for news publishers:

https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/help/377680816096171?id=644465919618833

It's weird defending Facebook

That's not really aggregation like Google do. It's an option for publishers to use Facebook and Facebook say if you're primarily creating news content this is the type of page you should use.

There is a choice for publishers to put their content on Facebook or not. There's no choice with Google. So I think it's fair for Facebook to make that point and say, well, if we're going to be treated like Google and have to pay publishers who are choosing to use our site as a distribution channel, then we'd rather shut it down because it's not really a core part of our business.

[garbon]

Well it is two parts, there are aspects that publishers can choose (as supported by facebook) but there is also all the content that users post like we do here.

I think it is fair for facebook to wipe their hands of news media but then it should be something consistent not just pick and choose here when local laws note we should be paying for the distribution that we are doing (even if only by our users).

[garbon]

I don't think it is an accident that the main panel for FB is the 'News Feed'