That is what buzzed through my mind when I was confronted with ‘Australia wants to make digital platforms pay for news — even if they block it, like Meta did here’ a mere hour ago (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/australia-social-media-ban-1.7408426) You see, the media (and politics) are so willing to make social media the bad apple. It must come at a price.
Example:
I see something on Google Search (as I usually do) and I think “This might be interesting” and I take a look only to be confronted by a paywall. It is the media advertising habit. As such, if Australian politics want to make the social media pay, it comes at a price. All pay blocks are forbidden by Australian news and Australian media. You do not get to call yourself ‘entertainment’ and use the news as a advertisement campaign. An example of this is the Queensland Courier Mail. And there are many who use this method (some do not). When you charge others for your triviality, you do not get to set your bar to ‘private’, you must offer it to all without a paywall.
I have more issues with “The Australian government said Thursday it will tax large digital platforms and search engines unless they agree to share revenue with Australian news media organisations.” You see, soon others (like game makers) will rely on other means to get revenue and this is a handle that allows them to get a slice of it. Of course there are all kinds of ways that these are monitored and that will open even more doors. To be honest I look at Australian media less then a dozen times a year at present. They are that much trivialised by themselves.
As such Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland created a new problem (as I see it). How to police the media, because that is the second hurdle. There is at that point no longer “the people have a right to know”, it becomes all the people should get to know. The difference seems trivial, but it is not. And as a third base, it is no longer an option to filter the news. Stakeholders and share holders do not get to tell the audience that it is in their best interest. No, no, it all becomes available to everyone at that point. I wonder how long it will take for political parties to see that they tied their own shoelaces together.
As such it will (I speculate) too long for the media to seek another path to managing their own news. And the bar will be set massively low when other parties hide behind ‘right to express yourself’ into a setting not unlike ‘we communicate our news to the world’ and that is merely the beginning. Soon thereafter every cause will have a ‘news’ cycle because they are given free money by the Australian government. I think that Meta, Google and TikTok are already aware of that danger. It seems like the media will soon see the demand from the people and some will see this as ‘newsworthy’ demanding a few coins from Google (et al) in the process.
As I see it, there will soon be a rush for coins from nearly every location. Have a great Friday, I am about to gander to the breakfast table.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 