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Australian publishing pioneer says Google and Facebook should withdraw from Australia

Founder and Editor of On Line Opinion, Australia’s first online-only journal of politics and public opinion, Graham Young, agrees with Google and Facebook they should either refuse to carry Australian news, or withdraw their services if the government’s proposed legislation is passed.

“The government’s intention to charge Google and Facebook for linking to “news” is in the grand Australian history of larceny.

“Without Google and Facebook, Australia’s publishers would die. They are the guides who bring readers to the websites and give the publishers a chance to convince them to pay for specific content.

“If anything Australia’s publishers should be paying Google and Facebook for delivering them readers.

“Google and Facebook are the newsagents of the 21st Century, but unlike the newsagents of the 20th Century, they don’t get to charge the news organisations for their services.

“So they have to fund it another way – Internet advertising. Now legacy media wants to clip that ticket.”

Mr Young said that if the social media companies had to pay for linking to other company’s content, then their business model was broken and they should withdraw their services.

“This isn’t a threat, this is standard business practice – if you can’t make a profit, you don’t do it.”

Mr Young said that mainstream news organisations destroyed their own business models when the Internet arrived by giving away their content for free, thinking that people would continue to buy hard-copy newspapers for classified advertising and real estate display advertising.

“That didn’t happen. Advertising migrated to the Internet, and once educated that news should be free, consumers didn’t want to pay for it. News media has struggled ever since.”

Mr Young said that what we are seeing now is classic rent-seeking where legacy media, including some of the early online pioneers, are trying to penalise a successful competitor for having a better model.

“If there was any theft in what Google and Facebook are doing it would be a breach of existing copyright law and the media companies would be able to claw back profit using it.

“The fact they are proposing novel legislation proves their over-reach.”

Mr Young said that there were real problems with the social media giants, but it had nothing to do with them “stealing” content from news organisations.

“Google and Facebook use their almost monopoly status to rig political discussions. They pick and choose what opinions and facts will be made public, and they make undeclared contributions to political campaigns by biasing their algorithms.

“They have a lot to be held accountable for, but that doesn’t justify the government hitting them with a discriminatory tax to favour legacy media companies.

“If Google or Facebook refuse to carry Australian news, that would just be commercial good sense. If the government thinks they should provide the service as a community service, then let them pay them a community service obligation payment.

“Of course this would effectively be a government payment to legacy media, and a reward to media companies for bad management. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

For further information contact Graham Young 0411 104 801

Note. The Australian Institute for Progress is the current publisher of On Line Opinion. Under some potential amendments to the government's legislation we would receive payments. We would not deserve them.