Australia vows to push on with content laws that will force Facebook to pay for news
- Facebook on Thursday blocked news links from appearing in Australia, saying it had been left with no choice ahead of the new content rules
- PM Scott Morrison on Friday said the leaders of Britain, Canada, France and India had shown support for its new laws
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday vowed to press ahead with laws to force Facebook to pay news outlets for content, saying he had received support from world leaders after the social media giant blacked out all media.
Facebook stripped the pages of domestic and foreign news outlets for Australians and blocked users of its platform from sharing any news content on Thursday, saying it had been left with no choice ahead of the new content laws.
The move, which also erased several state government and emergency department accounts amid the coronavirus pandemic, as well as non-profit charity sites, caused outrage.
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Morrison said his government was “happy to listen to them on the technical issues”, but remained determined to pass the law.
“It’s not OK to unfriend Australia because Australia is very friendly,” Morrison said. “We’d like to remain very friendly and it’s time for them to friend us again.”
The leader said the leaders of Britain, Canada, France and India had shown support for Australia’s move.
What Australia will do here is likely to be followed by many other Western jurisdictions
“There is a lot of world interest in what Australia is doing,” Morrison said. “That is why I invite … Facebook to constructively engage because they know that what Australia will do here is likely to be followed by many other Western jurisdictions.”
He urged the social media giant to lift its blockade and return to the negotiating table with news publishing businesses.
“The idea of shutting down the sorts of sites they did yesterday, as some sort of threat — well, I know how Australians react to that and I thought that was not a good move on their part,” Morrison said. “They should move quickly past that, come back to the table and we’ll sort it out.”
The Australian law, which will force Facebook and Google to reach commercial deals with Australian publishers or face compulsory arbitration, has already been cleared by the federal lower house and is expected to be passed by the Senate within the next week.
Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said he had spoken to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for a second time following the news blackout.
“We talked through their remaining issues and agreed our respective teams would work through them immediately. We’ll talk again over the weekend,” Frydenberg said in a tweet.
In its statement announcing the move in Australia, Facebook said the Australian law “misunderstood” its value to publishers. Frydenberg earlier told the Australian Broadcasting Corp that “there is something much bigger here at stake than just one or two commercial deals. This is about Australia’s sovereignty”.
Facebook and Alphabet Inc-owned Google had campaigned together against the laws with both threatening to withdraw key services from Australia if the laws took effect.
Google, however, announced a host of pre-emptive licensing deals over the past week, including a global agreement with News Corp.
Facebook restored some government pages later on Thursday, but several charity, non-profit and even neighbourhood groups remained dark.
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Morrison’s comments came after Canada on Thursday said it would also make Facebook pay for news content, seeking allies in the media battle with tech giants and pledging not to back down if the social media platform shuts off the country’s news as it did in Australia.
Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, in charge of crafting similar legislation to be unveiled in coming months, condemned Facebook’s action and said it would not deter Ottawa.
“Canada is at the forefront of this battle ... we are really among the first group of countries around the world that are doing this,” he told reporters.
Last year, Canadian media organisations warned of a potential market failure without government action. They said the Australian approach would permit publishers to recover C$620 million a year. Without action, they warned, Canada would lose 700 print journalism jobs out of 3,100 in total.
Guilbeault said Canada could adopt the Australian model, which requires Facebook and Google to reach deals to pay news outlets whose links drive activity on their services, or agree on a price through binding arbitration.
Another option was to follow the example of France, which requires large tech platforms to open talks with publishers seeking remuneration for use of news content.
“We are working to see which model would be the most appropriate,” he said, adding he spoke last week to his French, Australian, German and Finnish counterparts about working together on ensuring fair compensation for web content.
“I suspect that soon we will have five, 10, 15 countries adopting similar rules ... is Facebook going to cut ties with Germany, with France?” he asked, saying that at some point Facebook’s approach would become “totally unsustainable”.
Additional reporting by AP
