Casual observers might call it the media thunder from Down Under. Newspapers and other businesses that independently source and produce local, regional and national news and information might call it Step 1 in levelling the information industry playing field.
Call it what you wish, but know that it is a win for journalism in particular and democracy in general. Legislation approved late last month in Australia requiring Facebook and Google to pay local media outlets and publishers for links to their content in news feeds and search results is also a win for information integrity.
And that is a win for democracy. European publisher groups are also pushing for regulations that would require social media platforms to pay for the news they distribute and benefit from but do not pay for. Canada needs to follow through now on its commitment to join Australia’s fight on behalf of news organizations that are struggling to survive.
Big tech in the form of Microsoft also backs what its president has said is legislation that will “ensure publishers and journalists get paid a fairer share for their work.” Until now that share from social media giants has been next to nothing. The result has been a serious erosion of independent media’s ability to allocate the resources needed to do the expensive and time-consuming legwork of gathering news, delivering informed analysis and holding those in power to account.
Facebook and Google have vacuumed up billions in digital ad revenue as their information distribution platforms use the content produced by their competitors without compensating them for that use. Such a deal for them! But not a such a good deal for information integrity and an even worse deal for the consumers of that information, who end up digesting a diet containing larger portions of propaganda, rumour and conspiracy theory twaddle.
Bad diets lead to poor health. In the case of information, they lead to a misinformed public and bad decisions in public and private enterprise.
