Technology

Stop the press

The news industry is at an inflection point – adapt or die.

21 June 2021

In February, Australian lawmakers took world-first legislative action in curbing some of the activities of big tech. The introduction of amended legislation – the News Media Bargaining Code – requires the likes of Facebook and Google to strike deals with Australian news and media houses to provide financial recompense for the redistribution of news content on the big tech platforms. It’s fair to say neither Google nor Facebook took well to having their wings clipped, with Facebook turning off Australian news services on its platform for a few days, and Google threatening to withdraw its search engine from the country.

Global concerns that big tech players have become too powerful will have been dealt an ace by such moves. The effort and resources involved in professionally producing news were being demonetised by big tech players, who vehemently denied they were publishers themselves, thus shirking any responsibility for factual accuracy, but continued to claim clicks and ad revenues in the process.

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