Australia is on the right path

Australia is on the right path

Its effort to discipline big technology firms will shape the future of democracy

Australia’s decision to take on big tech firms and adopt a principled stand on the issue is welcome. And so is Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s call to Prime Minister Narendra Modi — where, according to the Australian readout, Mr. Morrison spoke of the progress in the media-related legislation.
To understand Australia’s attempts to create a legal framework to get big tech firms to pay media publishers for the use of their content — and the recent deal between Google and News Corp whereby the latter will pay the former — it is important to go back to first principles. A mainstream media company invests enormous resources in reportage and news- gathering, fact-checking and editing, and production.
The news and views which are generated after due editorial diligence inform readers about the world around them, set the agenda for policymakers, and shape discourse and narratives — central to the functioning of a democracy. Big tech media companies, such as Google or Facebook, then use this content (produced by others) on their platforms. Advertisers then, based on the dominance of tech firms over the online space, shift their ad expenditure away from traditional media companies towards these firms. And so the work is put in by mainstream media companies, expenditure is incurred by them, but the profits are largely monopolized by the tech firms, leaving the original content producers struggling for survival.

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