Australia Is Making Big Tech Pay for the News It Profits From
Australia is once again positioning itself at the frontier of tech regulation. The country's government is advancing a plan to levy a tax on major platforms—Meta, Google, and TikTok—with the explicit goal of redirecting that revenue into struggling local newsrooms. It's a direct acknowledgment that the platform economy has hollowed out journalism, and that someone has to pay to fix it.
What the Proposal Actually Does
The Australian government's plan would impose a digital platforms levy on large tech companies that profit from news content—either by hosting it, linking to it, or using it to drive engagement on their platforms. Key details include:
- Targeted companies: Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Google (Search, YouTube), and TikTok
- Revenue destination: Funds collected would flow into grants and direct support for Australian news organizations, particularly regional and local outlets
- Threshold structure: Only platforms above a certain revenue threshold would be subject to the tax, shielding smaller players
- Government oversight: An independent body would likely administer fund distribution to prevent political interference
This builds on Australia's earlier News Media Bargaining Code (2021), which forced platforms to negotiate payment deals with news publishers or face mandatory arbitration. That law was the first of its kind globally and prompted Meta and Google to strike licensing deals with major Australian outlets.
Why This Matters Beyond Australia
The stakes here extend well past Canberra. Dozens of countries—including Canada, the UK, and members of the EU—are watching Australia's regulatory experiments as templates for their own legislation. A few reasons this one carries weight:
- Local journalism is in crisis everywhere. Ad revenue that once sustained regional papers has migrated almost entirely to platforms. Newsrooms have closed at a rate of roughly two per week in the US alone in recent years.
- Platforms benefit from news without paying for it. News content drives clicks, informs algorithmic recommendations, and boosts credibility—yet the outlets producing that content rarely see a share of that value.
- Meta's retreat from news creates urgency. After Facebook dramatically deprioritized news content in its feed starting in 2023, publishers lost significant referral traffic. The argument that platforms and publishers have a mutually beneficial relationship has become much harder to sustain.
- TikTok's inclusion is notable. Adding TikTok signals that Australia sees short-form video platforms—not just search and social—as participants in the news ecosystem that need to contribute to its sustainability.
The Pushback Will Be Fierce
Tech companies don't accept these regulations quietly. When Australia's 2021 bargaining code passed, Meta briefly blocked all news sharing in Australia—a hardball tactic that drew international criticism before the company reversed course. Expect similar pressure this time.
Google has argued repeatedly that it drives traffic to publishers and that taxing that relationship discourages investment in news products. Meta has increasingly framed news as a liability rather than an asset, suggesting it would simply exit the news space rather than pay. TikTok, facing its own regulatory pressures globally, has less leverage to push back but will likely follow the lead of its larger counterparts.
The Bigger Question
Australia's approach forces a question that every democracy with a free press needs to answer: Who is responsible for the infrastructure of public information? Platforms have become the primary distribution layer for news without bearing any of the cost of producing it. Whether a levy, a bargaining code, or some other mechanism is the right fix is debatable—but the problem it's trying to solve is real, urgent, and getting worse.