MELBOURNE, Australia — The Australian government has unveiled new draft legislation targeting major social media platforms with a revenue-based tax designed to support local journalism funding.
Officials released the proposed bill on Tuesday, planning to present it to Parliament before July 2nd. The legislation would establish financial pressure on companies like Meta, Google, and TikTok to negotiate compensation agreements with news publishers for journalistic content.
The social media companies have criticized the initiative, calling it a misguided “digital services tax” that fails to recognize changes in the advertising landscape and won’t create long-term sustainability for news organizations.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese emphasized the importance of compensating journalists for their work during a press conference.
“It shouldn’t just be able to be taken by a large multinational corporation and used to generate profits for that organisation with no compensation appropriate for the people who produce that creative content,” Albanese told reporters.
“We think that investment in journalism is critical to a healthy democracy,” he added.
This represents Australia’s second legislative effort to require these platforms to compensate for Australian news content and imagery consumed by their users.
Previously, the 2021 News Media Bargaining Code had pressured digital companies to establish payment agreements with Australian news publishers rather than face mandatory arbitration proceedings.
Initially, the platforms opted to negotiate commercial agreements with content creators to avoid court-mandated pricing. However, they subsequently discontinued these arrangements by eliminating news content from their platforms entirely.
Under the new News Bargaining Incentive proposal, major platforms that refuse to establish commercial agreements with news publishers would face a 2.25% tax on their Australian earnings.
Companies would receive tax reductions and lower overall expenses if they choose to compensate publishers for journalism, according to government officials.
Australian authorities anticipate the incentive could generate between 200 to 250 million Australian dollars ($144 million-$179 million) annually. This amount roughly matches what platforms previously paid news outlets when the original News Media Bargaining Code was most effective.
Communication Minister Anika Wells explained that the government would allocate these funds to news organizations based on their journalist employment numbers.
The tax would target Meta Platforms (Facebook and Instagram’s parent company), Google (owned by Alphabet Inc.), and TikTok (majority-owned by U.S.-backed investors).
Meta strongly opposed the proposed legislation, stating that news organizations “voluntarily post content on our platforms because they receive value from doing so.”
“The idea that we take their news content is simply wrong. This proposed legislation, which would apply to platforms regardless of whether news content even appears on our services, is nothing more than a digital services tax,” Meta said in a statement.
“A government-mandated transfer of wealth from one industry to another, with no connection to the value exchanged, will not deliver a sustainable or innovative news sector. Instead, it will create a news industry dependent on a government-administered subsidy scheme,” Meta added.
Google responded by saying “we reject the need for this tax.”
“It ignores the fact that Google already has commercial agreements with the news industry, misunderstands how the ad market changed and mandates payments from some companies while arbitrarily excluding platforms like Microsoft, Snapchat and OpenAI — despite the major shift in how people consume news,” a Google statement said.
TikTok had not provided an immediate response to requests for comment.
All three targeted platforms are American companies. U.S. critics have previously argued that Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code unfairly burdened American corporations.
Albanese dismissed concerns about potential U.S. government opposition to the measure.
“We’re a sovereign nation and my government will make decisions based upon the Australian national interest,” Albanese said.
