Australia to force tech giants to keep paying for news

Australia's government says it will create new rules to force big tech companies to pay local publishers for news.

The long-awaited decision sets out a successor to a world-first law that Australia passed in 2021, which was designed to make giants like Meta and Google pay for hosting news on their platforms.

Earlier this year Meta - which owns Facebook and Instagram - announced it would not renew payment deals it had in place with Australian news organisations, setting up a standoff with lawmakers.

The new rules, announced on Thursday, will require firms that earn more than A$250m ($160m; £125m) in annual revenue to enter into commercial deals with media organisations, or risk being hit with higher taxes.

The design of the scheme is yet to be finalised but it will apply to sites such as Facebook, Google and TikTok.

In a statement, Meta said it was concerned that the government was "charging one industry to subsidise another".

Unlike the previous model, the new framework - called the News Bargaining Incentive - will require tech firms to pay even if they do not enter deals with publishers.

"Digital platforms receive huge financial benefits from Australia and they have a social and economic responsibility to contribute to Australians' access to quality journalism," Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said on Thursday.

The previous News Media Bargaining Code saw news organisations negotiate commercial deals with tech giants, while also committing firms like Facebook and Google to invest millions of dollars in local digital content.

That code aimed to address what the government called a power imbalance between publishers and tech companies, while offsetting some of the losses traditional media outlets have faced due to the rise of digital platforms.

As deals brokered under that arrangement neared expiry, Meta said that it would not be renewing them, leading to a roughly A$200m loss in revenue for Australian publishers.

Instead, Meta said it would phase out its dedicated news tab - which spotlights articles - on Facebook in Australia, and reinvest the money elsewhere.

"We know that people don't come to Facebook for news and political content… news makes up less than 3% of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed," it said in a statement in February.

The announcement prompted a strong response from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government, which described the move as "a fundamental dereliction" of Meta's "responsibility to its Australian users".

"The risk is that misinformation will fill any vacuum created by news no longer being on the platform," Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said at the time.

The new taxation model begins in January 2025 and will be cemented into law once parliament returns in February.

The government says it will be designed to make tech companies fund Australian journalism in exchange for tax offsets, not to raise revenue.