Stefan Mileschin

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When the Australian government stood up to Big Tech most expected it to cave in after Google threatened to leave the country, but it did not happen.

For those who came in late, Google threatened to leave Australia if the country implemented a "news media bargaining code" forcing social media platforms to pay news publishers.

However, what happened was that Google and Facebook did not leave; they paid up, striking deals with news organisations to pay for the content they display on their sites for the first time.

The code was formally approved on March 2, 2021. One year after the media code was introduced, Google has 19 content deals with news organisations and Facebook has 11, according to Australia's communications minister Paul Fletcher.

While this is good news for Australian newspapers, it is bad news for Big Tech which is finding that other countries are thinking “we’ll be having some of that.”

Countries around the world are looking at Australia's code as a blueprint of how to subsidize the news and stop the spread of "news deserts" — communities that no longer have a local newspaper.

https://fudzilla.com/news/54439-aust...up-to-big-tech