Tech Won't Save Us - Australia’s Plan to Make Tech Pay for News w/ Lizzie O’Shea

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

Paris Marx is joined by Lizzie O’Shea to discuss how Australia’s plan to make Google and Facebook pay news publishers entrenches a data-extractive business model and aligns the interests of tech giants and media companies against those of the public.Lizzie O’Shea is a human rights lawyer and the founder of Digital Rights Watch. She’s also the author of “Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us about Digital Technology.” Follow Lizzie on Twitter as @Lizzie_OShea.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode:Lizzie wrote about the problems with this plan for Overland Journal and Nikkei Asia.Paris wrote about why we shouldn’t link big tech and news giants for Tribune Magazine.Facebook restricted news sharing in Australia, while Google has signed deals with News Corp, Nine Entertainment, Seven West Media, and more for its News Showcase.Australia has among the most concentrated media ownership in the world. Former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull called for a royal commission on Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.Australia’s competition regulator released a digital platforms report with recommendations that included the bargaining code in 2019.Canada and the European Union may copy Australia’s model. French publishers are already getting paid by Google.Support the show

It's incentivizing a form of optimization of news production that is exactly what we don't need, one that's data-centric, that's based on monetization, that aligns news media organizations with platforms against users to further exploit them for their data. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. I'm your host, Paris Marks, and this week my guest is Lizzie O'Shea. Lizzie is a human rights lawyer and the founder of Digital Rights Watch. She's also the author of Future Histories, What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Can Teach Us About Digital Technology. Lizzie is also the first repeat guest on the show. I won't be doing repeat guests very often, but for this topic that we're talking about today, I really wanted to

get Lizzie back on and get her opinion on what's happening down in Australia. So in this episode, Lizzie and I talk about the news media bargaining code that's been introduced in Australia with the plan to make Google and Facebook and in the future more digital platforms pay news publishers for linking to their news stories. On its face, this might sound like a good idea, taking money from the tech giants and giving it to struggling news organizations. But as we discuss in this episode, there are a lot of issues with this proposal. Ultimately, it's not designed to serve the public interest, but rather to serve powerful, consolidated media organizations that are often serving the interest of their powerful owners and controllers and not the public good. The bill that would put this

bargaining code into place is working its way through the Australian Parliament right now. And in this episode, we talk a little bit about Google's response to the plan, but we don't really talk about Facebook's. And since recording, there has been some updates, some new developments. So I just wanted to lay those out for you before we get into the episode. We'll talk about how Google is making deals with news publishers. But on the morning of Thursday, February 18th in Australia, Google and News Corp, which is the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, that they had signed a deal to have Google pay for news produced by News Corp, which is a significant development.

And at the same time, Facebook also announced that it will not be pursuing these deals in the way that Google has done and will actually restrict the ability for users to link to news stories on its platform. So obviously, this situation is still developing, but those are important aspects of this that we didn't get to that I thought should be there for context before we get started. The other reason that this conversation is important before we get into it is that it's not just Australia that is considering bringing in one of these laws. In Canada, where I am, the government has made it very clear that they intend to do something similar. And Europe is also looking at similar schemes. And France has also moved forward with making tech giants pay some amount of money to news publishers for their stories. So this is very much an ongoing thing that I think we're going to see a lot more

of in the years to come. And we need to make sure that we're able to fight it and ensure that these plans serve the public interest and not just the tech giants and the media giants. So before we get into the episode, as always, Tech Won't Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media Network, a group of left-wing podcasts that are made in Canada. And you can find out more about that at harbingermedianetwork.com. If you like the show, please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and make sure to share it on social media or with any friends or colleagues you think would like it. And obviously we're talking in this episode

about media funding. So if you want to ensure that every episode with these critical perspectives on technology are free for everyone, please go to patreon.com slash techwantsaveus where you can join supporters like Nick Story, Kelly Halen, and Wireshark Cassie by becoming a monthly supporter. Thanks so much and enjoy this conversation. Lizzie, welcome back to Tech Won't Save Us. Thank you so much for having

me on. It's great to speak with you again. You know, after discussing your fantastic book, now there's this really important issue that is kind of playing out in Australia that I think is going to be really relevant for a lot of other countries in the years ahead. And so that's why I wanted to talk to you about this to get an idea of what's going on down there to see if other people can learn from the Australian experience. And so obviously, the Australian government has recently introduced a media bargaining code that's kind of set up to get some tech platforms that benefit from digital advertising to pay news publishers that are losing advertising revenue as a result. So can you explain what

this media bargaining code is? And what problems does it claim to address? Or does it seek to address? I'm really excited to talk to you, Paris, because I think this is a really important issue. So I'm glad that you're spending time discussing it on your podcast. Australia, unfortunately, I think does tend to set a bad example when it comes to technology policy for other countries around the world. And unfortunately, I don't think this is any exception to that rule. So our competition regulator went through an extensive process and drafted a very lengthy report about the problems with large tech platforms in Australia. And in particular, the regulator looked at Facebook and Google and focused on a lot of different ways in which we

might seek to regulate those platforms to minimize the downsides of having monopolies in this space. I thought there were some great recommendations in that report. I thought it was getting to the heart of a lot of these problems. And the recommendations were very wide-ranging, including looking at things like privacy, as well as things like antitrust and anti-competition measures or policies to improve competition. Unfortunately, the one that was taken up was this proposed media bargaining code. So that was the recommendation that was first off the list that the government has sought to implement. What they've done is draft this bill. It's just been to a parliamentary committee. So it's been under public scrutiny for about the

last six months. That parliamentary committee has just finished its report. So it's now back before the parliament. And if my judgment's correct, then it will be passed in the near future. The motivation, stated motivation of this piece of legislation, or this bill, I should say, is to address the serious problem we have with public interest, investigative journalism, in the wake of the digital revolution. And I'm sure I don't need to tell your listeners about that problem. But, you know, in the US, for example, newspapers have shed half of their newsroom employees since 2008. In Australia, we are certainly not immune from that problem. There's been 157 newsrooms that have closed either temporarily or for good since January 2019. So obviously, that's partly due to the pandemic. But a big part of it is problems with monetizing

news content, particularly for regional and rural areas. And this is a really serious problem. There's no doubt about that. In particular, in Australia, when we went through a period of intense bushfires last year, as people may remember, it was really clear that we needed a new service that was decentralised, that it was a life-saving resource for people in remote and regional areas who were reliant on those new sources to figure out where a fire might be headed. So, I mean, of course, there's a general diversity question of media and how important that is, but also this idea that it's a resource, it's a public good that serves a particular purpose.

And it's been gutted by the fact that a number of tech platforms have taken up that form of advertising revenue and it's started to line the pockets of Silicon Valley billionaires rather than, say, the local paper in Mildura, I mean, regional Victoria, which has just shut down, which has been one of the longest running papers in the country. So that's the context. And of course, people don't like that large tech platforms make a lot of money, which I think is a common or perhaps almost universal feeling around the world. There's a sense that they make too much money, which I think is a common or perhaps almost universal feeling around the world. There's a sense that they make too much money, they're somewhat lawless, they offshore those profits and they get away with essentially dictating the rules in which they participate

in particular markets. And those two political things combined, I think, have led to a pretty powerful rhetorical argument in support of this proposed code. Now, I can tell you a bit more about the code in particular. The idea is that it will set up a forced arbitration system where if you post a link that links to news content relating to Australia produced by what is a news organisation under the draft bill, so that's defined in a particular way, then you'll be required as a tech platform, in this instance, it's Google and Facebook, to pay for that content, to pay for that link. Now, I think in practice, what that would mean is that you'd be negotiating, Facebook and Google with media organizations would be negotiating to pay some sum for links that

appear on their search results, on their platforms. However, if they couldn't come to an agreement, they'll be forced into an arbitration to put a price on that, which is unique in a couple of ways, but largely sets up a system of private transfers between two major tech platforms with the potential for that to expand to other platforms and news organizations who are producing news content that's relevant to Australia. Yeah, I think that's a fantastic explanation of the bargaining code and how everything is working. So I appreciate that. And obviously, I have specific questions about the code itself and kind of the system that it would set up. But before we get into that, I did want to get a

little bit more context for the listeners to know, you know, what's going on in Australia. So you mentioned that, you know, Australian newsrooms have been hit even further since the pandemic began. Obviously, this process began before the pandemic started, before that was an issue. But has the experience of the past 12 or so months, I guess, created even further incentive for the government to go down this route to try to find some solution to the problem with news publishers in Australia? Well, I don't want to sound incredibly cynical here, but one of the reasons why a lot of people assume this was the proposal that the government decided to act on

is because those leading the charge were from News Limited, which is the Murdoch-owned press. So, you know, Australia has their proud award of having raised Rupert Murdoch. Even though he's no longer a citizen, he was just given an award. It's like our honor system. He was given an award as an Australian, even though he's not actually an Australian. He's a resident of the US for tax purposes, but he's someone who obviously is extremely influential in developing modern, particularly tabloid media. There's been a huge concentration of Australian media in a very small number of countries, which is a problem that has been felt in a lot of anglophone countries, but particularly in the United Kingdom, where again, Rupert Murdoch is quite powerful, but of course, somewhere like the United States,

where there's huge congregation around some of his networks. So, you know, there's an argument that the politicians are keen to please the Murdoch media empire because they're very powerful. And that's one of the reasons why this was put forward as a proposal that should be acted upon early. Now, I don't actually think that's a conspiracy theory. I think that's largely true, although a lot of other news organizations have fallen into line. So, you know, The Guardian, for example, have been advocating very strongly for this code. There's been a few different smaller digital outlets that have been doing that as well. But there's a huge diversity of media that's available in the digital age on YouTube and the like, as well as podcasts that are much smaller that are often the home of investigative journalists that are not as keen on

this because they're probably excluded from it because they're not large news organizations, which is generally what the code is designed to cover. So that I think is part of the context that you cannot ignore if you're an Australian. And that's been a process that's been going on for some time, but the relationship between the politicians and the media, just like it is playing out in all other countries around the world, has been pretty pivotal to getting this particular policy proposal moving. Obviously, listeners in the US and the UK will be familiar with kind of the impact of Rupert Murdoch on the media ecosystem in their countries. But as you say, you know, Australia is kind of unique in the fact that it has, I think, the most concentrated media ecosystem among developed countries, at

least. So I wonder if you can explain a bit about kind of the effect that that has on the media ecosystem in Australia. And I know there was a recent push to look at forming some kind of the effect that that has on the media ecosystem in Australia. And I know there was a recent push to look at forming some kind of committee or something to kind of look into the Murdoch media empire and news consolidation in Australia. Can you give us a bit of background on that? Yeah, it's really interesting that you raise that. On that last point, our former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who is a bit of a divisive character, I suppose, but he was online advocating for a Royal Commission into the influence of the Murdoch media, essentially. And it was a hugely popular push. Hundreds of thousands of people signed the petition because there's a sense that the Murdoch media really contributes to news becoming a source of partisan

hackery. It's very, very similar to Fox News. In some ways, I feel that we don't have it as bad as the US where I think a lot of people who come from the outside watch something like Fox News and find it quite confronting. But equally, we have a cable channel here, which is run by Rupert Murdoch's guy, where he has a regular contributor in all sorts of awful people. But Lauren Southern was recently hired as a regular contributor in a way that I don't think that would really be considered acceptable in lots of other countries. So, you know, they've also platformed, you know, stated far-right activists and the like at various points in time. So, it is a very potent force for building far-right politics in a way that is similar but

distinctive to the US. And I think Australians like to think often that the kind of partisanship that exists in the media in the US is not something that we'd identify with. But in fact, unfortunately, in some ways, we can end up being worse. So I think that's pretty confronting. There's a lot of failure to reckon with the consequences of that kind of media landscape. And it is a function, I think, of a failure to have significant diversity. There's certainly capital cities in our country that have one major daily newspaper that is owned by Rupert Murdoch. And like in many places as well, there's particular channels that politicians watch, that people who hold office and various positions of power watch, and then

there's channels that other people watch and there's distinct audiences for them. But there's a very strong sense here that Sky in particular, who I mentioned before, is very influential among the political elite and among journalists themselves, so holds quite significant power. And that's pretty troubling when you look at who's making up that content. Yeah, no, I think that's a really good point. And obviously, consolidation and the shift to the right in the media is an issue in the US and UK as well. In Canada, we have a consolidated media ecosystem, but we don't have Murdoch. So it also has its kind of distinct points as well, but, you know, still highly consolidated under kind of right wing companies that have certain incentives to push different narratives. So it was interesting to see that those things still sort of play out, even though they have their kind of distinct regional ways that they show in different countries. The last thing I suppose I'd say about that is one of the things that really frustrates me about this code, and I'm sure we'll talk about it more, but is that in some ways it kind of underestimates the value of traditional media outlets and the value that

they add to platforms because they're news organizations that meet the criteria to be able to access the bargaining and arbitration system under the code. It's your Rupert Murdoch news organizations, it's The Guardian, those kinds of organizations. But actually, there are kinds of content producers who are often engaged in things like satire or non-traditional news formats that are incredibly popular, incredibly influential, that are accessed by people outside of those traditional media channels. And there's a real disconnect, I think, in how this proposed code reflects our understanding of what is valuable for a media landscape because it doesn't emphasise diversity.

It doesn't say, well, one of the good things about the digital age is the fact that independent producers of investigative and public interest journalism can get access to audiences in virtually unprecedented ways. That's a good aspect. I mean, the flip side of that is, of course, individual right-wingers can be far more popular than entire news organisations through their Facebook channel. So, there's also different ways in which that plays out. But what you really see in how this is drafted is that traditional news organizations get access to payments from platforms because of the value of the news content they provide. And to my mind, that seems like a very 20th century attitude to both how news is produced,

how it's valued, and how to model laws around the media landscape you want to see, how you can create laws that give rise to the best bits of the internet while minimizing the worst aspects. And I don't think that's really been done in any meaningful way in the context of this particular proposal. I completely agree. I would just add that it's quite different from the media code. But two or three years ago, Canada did like a public funding initiative for media because, you know, it was recognized that private media companies were struggling to have enough revenue to pay journalists and things like that. And there was that similar issue where the requirements would privilege these kind of really large traditional media organizations that have been heavily consolidated and cut over many years and exclude those kind of independent outlets or smaller outlets that have emerged in recent years.

So I think that's a general issue with how the approaches with these kind of media schemes are going, at least so far. But obviously on this code, I think some people might be able to look at it and from an uncritical perspective, think we're taking money from tech giants, we're giving it to media organizations. It seems like that would be a positive move, even if it's not completely perfect, right? But obviously there are a number of problems with the way that the code is designed that you've explained in a number of pieces that you've written. So what are some of the main issues that you see with the current design of the code is designed, that you've explained in a number of pieces that you've written. So what are some of the main issues that you see with the current design of the code? Yeah, well, I do have a lot of concerns about it. I'm not alone.

There are a few critics kicking around. But unfortunately, one of the problems with this structurally is that mainstream media organizations aren't necessarily interested in ventilating these issues, as you can imagine, because they have an interest in getting this turned into law, a pecuniary interest, really. Yeah, I would just add to that, that we see the same problem here in Canada, whenever it comes to any of these media funding initiatives, or even now they're considering something similar to what you're experimenting with now. And it's the same thing, you won't see any critical coverage of it. There was even an op-ed that was supposed to be published

in the Toronto Star that would have been critical of these kinds of funding schemes. And it was turfed and we only found out because the author tweeted that their op-ed was killed because it would have been critical of these schemes, right? It's very, very frustrating. Journalists do love to get on their moral high horse here as well and wax on about how important they are. And it's very frustrating when you can't even get a diversity of views on an issue like this. So I completely understand and I think it's legitimate to be concerned about the decline of public interest in investigative journalism. There's no guarantee under this proposal that that is what will be funded. So of course, if you're worried about that, there's ways to fund that. And there's been

proposals put forward throughout the last six months to discuss exactly that, including setting up foundations that might be able to fund long-term journalistic programs at arm's length, but they're sourced from tax revenue, that you could do that to actually fund what is missing in the landscape, which is regional rural journalism, specialist beats, things like courts, but also science to some degree. Funding those kinds of things is actually what we need to restore a functioning free press. There's no guarantee that's what will happen. So once the money comes in via the COS, via the arbitration scheme, if that's what it comes to, there's no requirement that these news organizations spend the funds in any particular way. So that's the first thing.

If you're trying to solve the problem of media decline, I would create a policy that actually targeted that instead of just handing money to news organizations to spend as they like. So, the second thing, I think, is that if we are worried about tech platforms making too much money from a data extractive business model, which I think, again, is a very legitimate concern, I think there's two answers to that. We have to tax them properly. And in fact, those taxes could be diverted, I don't even mind if that's what happens, into public interest journalism initiatives. That would at least restore some democratic aspect to the process rather than creating a system of private transfers over which there's no public accountability between news

organisations and tech platforms. So if we're worried about tech platforms making too much money, again, a very legitimate concern. My view is that you should tax them. And then we have some democratic oversight into how that money is spent and what things we think are important. Now, of course, there's difficulties with that because a lot of these companies have very sophisticated structures in place precisely to avoid paying tax. But there are examples around the world of countries who've done that effectively. I also would say what I think happens with this code is it entrenches a form of data-centric business models as they exist in relation to media and general online engagement. So what I mean by that is another aspect of the code is that media organizations will

get access to information about how search algorithms will change that affect them. So when Google tinkers with their search algorithm and it'll affect how news results are presented, they will have to tell these news organizations about it in advance. And the outcome of that is that you get a kind of data-centric focus of journalism as well. That's not necessarily incentivizing public interest or investigative journalism.

It could actually incentivize a kind of journalism that is designed around optimizing search results and placement of news articles in search results. The last thing I suppose that's important to mention in that context is that news organizations will also get access to information about people who click through on their articles from these platforms. And that, to me, is also worrying. So it creates this kind of dynamic where you can get access to data about your readers

from the industry of surveillance capitalism in the form of Google and Facebook. And what that really says to me is that media organizations complain about the business model that's given rise to massive profits for tech platforms. But instead of criticizing that from a privacy perspective, for example, or prioritizing giving people ownership and control over their personal information, the news organizations are essentially trying to get in on this to get access to the way in which this has become profitable for those tech platforms. And that is not, I think, the model we want to entrench in terms of our media, in terms

of our online engagement. So those are some of the key problems. There's other ones as well in terms of how the public media is funded, which I can talk about. But I think it's important to remember that that's what we're talking about here, not a revolutionary change for how public interest journalism happen or how tech platforms make money, but instead a kind of cooperative scheme between news organizations and tech platforms at the expense, I would argue, of users and readers. Yeah, I would completely agree with that. Obviously, there's been criticism in not even recent years, for a while now, of the way that social media and the decline of ad revenue and

kind of reliance on needing to get audiences from these tech platforms has changed the way that news is done to make it more so it's designed around getting clicks and things like that. And it seems like what you're describing is news organizations that will have an even more direct access to all the data that is kind of driving various decisions that are made by these platforms. And then that might even further shape the kind of driving various decisions that are made by these platforms. And then that might even further shape the kind of media and journalism that gets done because they know more about the type of clicks that are happening, the things that are getting people to click and come to the story. So I guess, is that part of the concern with the way that this code and this

legislation is being designed? Exactly. So it's kind of incentivizing a form of optimization of news production that is just exactly what we don't need at this particular point. One that's data centric, that's based on monetization, that aligns news media organizations with platforms against users to further exploit them for their data. So, you know, it sounds good when it's presented, you know, we need to solve this problem of under-resourced media when platforms making too much money, that's the price that's been paid. And then when you pull it apart a bit, you realize there's these big problems with it. There are a couple of other things that I thought would be worth mentioning. One of them is for people who are interested in the more kind of technical architecture

aspect of this. One of the people who've made a submission on this bill in the course of it being scrutinized was Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. So he put in a submission talking about how the fundamentals of the proposal are about paying for linking. So in practical terms, it's not as though Google and Facebook will be required to pay every news organization for this number of links that are posted in their search results, for example, or on their news feed. But the actual fundamentals of the proposed legislation is that that's how it's structured. That's the metric that's used. So paying for links.

So if there are fewer links that appear in a search result or on a news feed, those organizations would pay less to news companies. Now, that's a fundamental shift in how the web has worked to date. You can read Tim Berners-Lee's submission where he talks about this, that the ability to link freely is a fundamental principle of the web. And before search engines, that's how you used to get around the web, linking between web pages. And freely, in terms of a freedom of speech issue, but also freely in terms of costs, like you were never required to pay. Now, of course, news organizations may impose a paywall and they're entitled to do that, but the act of linking itself was not what generated a

charge. And this shift, I think, has potential implications, could be used in other ways. It's unprecedented as far as I can tell. I mean, it was experimented with as a potential proposal in Europe in relation to copyright and policing copyright, but ultimately that's been held off. But if this passes, as I understand it, it'll be the first time that you'd have to pay for a link appearing in response to a search or a news feed. And I would hate to see that rolled out as a general policy response to other problems we might encounter on the web or as a way for government to encourage other kinds of behavior. I just think it really undermines the whole aspect of the web that made it great, that gave rise to all sorts of interesting

collaborations and innovations. And so even if you're only interested in it from a technical perspective, I think it's very problematic. Yeah, I completely agree with that. I think for the past several decades, we've already seen how the web has become further and further commercialized and privatized and kind of just enclosed by these private companies. And the notion that now linking is going to be something that's open to charging for is just, it feels like another step down that road and not a step that we want to take. And another issue that I found with this proposal for me was, obviously, we're talking about there being massive tech

monopolies that we are struggling to kind of get control over. And we're also talking about how our media systems in many countries have become consolidated and almost monopolized to a certain degree, or at least, you know, oligopolies of media. And so now, what this proposal seems to be doing is kind of linking the interests of these two major forces in society. And I feel like that has a lot of scary negative implications for kind of power dynamics and our ability to kind of fight both of these major players and kind of reduce their size and make them serve public ends and the public good instead of their own kind of motivations and profits and things like that. Yeah. I mean, you essentially now have a source of revenue that the media companies and the tech platforms are aligned on

and want to continue. I mean, that's the last aspect, which is kind of specific to Australia, but is worth mentioning, which is for a long time, the public broadcasters, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and there's also a smaller one as well, were excluded from this code. And part of the reason I thought was legitimate, which is they wanted to protect the independents, but they ended up being included because it was seen as outrageous that, you know, a public broadcaster could create great content and they weren't entitled to payment from it, whereas News Limited was. But my view is that's also extremely harmful. Again, like, where is the diversity of the landscape that could critique this proposal, could advocate for users, could, you know, argue that data sharing of this nature is in breach of

our idea of privacy and should be reformed? I mean, the other aspect of it is that it creates this source of revenue, which can then justify cuts from the public purse. Because if you can now say to a public broadcaster, well, you can make money from tech platforms, so you should optimize your content to increase that source of revenue, and then the taxpayer won't have to pay for your existence. It's a way of privatising essentially these public services. And you lose this idea that it should be a universal service that we fund from public revenue, that is a pillar of democracy, that you wouldn't apply to other kinds of institutions that we think are integral to social democracy. And so I think there's some very troubling implications there where some of these are good intentions, haven't necessarily been thought through.

And we'll get to the point, I think, in a year or two to come if this passes, where there'll be all sorts of terrible unintended consequences. And it's very difficult to undo because in part, at least, as a very first step, there's almost no way or no one interested in critiquing this in the places where you would normally expect to find that critique in media organisations, including the public broadcasters, which is incredibly troubling. Yeah, I completely share those sentiments. I would just add that here in Canada, the public broadcaster is partly funded by public funds and then also by advertising revenue. And so we already see kind of the negative implications of it having to try to attract advertisers, right?

And so I think if these kind of requirements were added to that, it would just be a further negative hit on the public function of the public broadcaster. And so now what I'm also wondering, obviously, this proposal is out there now. It looks like the government is going to pass it at some point in the future. So what has been the response to this by the major tech platforms, by Google and Facebook? Well, part of the problem is they're unpopular. So one of the things that Google did in the context of providing evidence to a parliamentary committee about this proposal was they threatened to abandon the market, to withdraw the search product from the Australian market. So of course,

people find this just excruciating. I think the general public just hates this because what it looks like is tech's made a lot of money. They now expect to be able to write the rules and when they can't, they throw their toys out of the pram. And not an illegitimate complaint. I'm not sure these tech companies are always very good at advocating for their own interests, let alone the public's interests. So, apparently, they've kind of privately to the Prime Minister stepped back from that threat. But that was the idea that they would stop providing search in Australia. And I do kind of understand where they're coming from in that I think that it is largely unworkable. I think it's very negative

and we're not a massive market. So in some ways, I can understand why they may wish to do that from a business perspective. I think what's also going on here is they're very concerned this might be implemented in other parts of the world. Already Europe's watching quite closely what's happening with this proposal and is considering, at least reportedly, introducing something similar. You could see it unfolding in that way all around the world. So I think they see this as the thin end of the wedge, as the beginning of this kind of fight, and they want to assert themselves. I think they're also smart enough to start doing other things like negotiating to try and avoid having to go to

the arbitration system at all with individual news organizations. So I think they're starting to see it. But part of the problem is it's very easy for politicians to give large tech platforms a kick and win the public's approval for that. And that's not without good cause, but it's very frustrating when they may have a point, but also, I suppose, when there is a very serious issue at stake and it's difficult to pass out the signal from the noise because of that political dynamic at play. So yeah, we're facing a difficult circumstance where lots of mainstream news organisations, including ones they consider quite progressive, are lining up behind this. The only people on the other side are large tech corporations that

have not had a great relationship with the public on this point, largely seen as having made too much money and are not interested in complying with local laws, which it does mean that it's very difficult to kind of stop this or have even a proper debate about it, which is, of course, very frustrating. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And, you know, obviously, I'm interested in what's happening in Australia. But part of the reason for my interest as well is because the Canadian government has been very explicit that they're watching this and intending to follow suit, you know, once your law gets implemented. And when Google did

make the threat to withdraw Google search from the Australian market, you know, at first, I was like, this sounds really interesting. Like, it'll be really interesting to see what Australia might do, right. But then immediately, Microsoft stepped up and said, well, you can just all use Bing, and then started going around the world saying, you know, the United States should copy this, Europe should copy this. And so it seems like, you know, you wouldn't even really get that kind of local innovation from it. You'd just get another monopolist to kind of step in and take over, right? Yeah. Sorry. I should have mentioned that. Bing's been there as a faithful servant of the government in its time of need, very keen to enter the market or take up a bit more of a market share than what it currently holds, which is absolutely tiny and be like the supportive

government search engine, which is kind of comical and ridiculous. Yeah, that is certainly part of it. You don't necessarily get much benefit from kind of local innovation. The other kind of thing that came out of this, which I mentioned because it may be something that crops up in other jurisdictions, but the Greens party here, which is traditionally considered very progressive, they started saying, well, what the government should do is offer a publicly funded search engine, a government-run search engine, as they described it, in response. And I understand where that comes from. I do think it's a pretty terrible idea because I don't think anybody's going to use a government-run search engine for obvious privacy reasons. So I think there are alternatives to

major tech platforms. And I think the government can kind of find ways to help build them, to provide incentives for there to be non-profit tech companies that offer particular kinds of services that might prioritize user interests over monetization. There's lots of ways in which you could experiment with that. And even like the public broadcaster, I think, could do a better job or could be funded to do work around creating a social media ways in which you could experiment with that. And even like the public broadcaster, I think, could do a better job or could be funded to do work around creating a social media type environment where you could engage in public participation, that you could have discussions that take place that are moderated perhaps, but do give rise to discussions about what kind of policies we should adopt as a society

and have those debates that are traditionally left to be had on Facebook. So I think there's ways in which government can support alternatives. I wasn't sure that was the best thought through proposal, and it was kind of a knee-jerk response to the way this particular debate has played out. But I would hope that if this is replicated elsewhere, that activist advocates would be armed with some kind of suggestions around how government could do that better, because there's definitely a role for them to play. But I think we do need to be careful about how we pitch those alternatives so that we don't look like we're creating a Stasi state where governments would see every search you make.

And it's that or it's this media code. And I can understand why people would not want either. Yeah, absolutely. And I would just add, I think there are definitely interesting proposals being made for that. I spoke with Dan Hind, who has kind of proposed something for the BBC and how that could be expanded to serve that kind of role that you were talking about. So I think there are plenty of interesting proposals. But now, obviously, you know, you say Google has kind of stepped back from the ledge, but they have started signing deals with different news organizations like Seven West Media, Crikey, The Conversation, to kind of license their stories for its news

showcase. So what is going on there and what is the plan? Because this is outside of the media code. Yeah. So people may recall, if they're listening at the start of the conversation, talk about how it sets up an arbitration regime. So if these companies, these tech platforms and news organizations can't come to an agreement, they're then forced to go to an arbitrator who'll set a price for what they understand to be the content that's been exchanged between these platforms or the content shared on the platform that's come from news organizations. So, one way to avoid that arbitration regime is to come up with your own deals between you. And so, that's arguably one motivation of this particular code, that it sets up a scheme that incentivizes negotiation that allows for payment for these things outside of any official arbitrated

scheme. And I think that's what Google is starting to do now because it's clocked that this is not something that is going to go away. And the threat of withdrawing from the market didn't go very well. And they do do these kinds of deals all around the world. They pay news organizations for this content. That's something that Google says all the time. We pay for journalism. We always think that we should pay our fair share. We fund things. I mean, I'm also a bit worried about that. There's all sorts of ways in which Google has influence

in newsrooms and news organizations through paying for things and paying for certain kinds of initiatives already. And in some ways, these kinds of arrangements allow them to be in the room with journalists, fund certain kinds of things, perhaps at the expense of others, which is again, partly why so many people are critical of this scheme, that it's not actually democratic. It's circumventing that traditional role of government to tax and then spend, which gives you democratic oversight over policymaking that comes from that. So they're already starting to negotiate those things to avoid the arbitration scheme already. I mean, I think that's a pretty big job because there'll be lots of news organizations they have to do it with, but it's a savvy business strategy to avoid what they can now, I think, realize is potentially a worse outcome if they

don't. Yeah. And I think it really shows how, yes, there does need to be some kind of plan to address the issues with media, the issues with media funding, because as you say, that, you know, as a public good, it serves a public service that people need in their communities. But it seems that the role is not to connect media to the tech platforms in this really direct way, but to set up some kind of mechanism through which, yes, you know, we need to tax the tech giants more, but that should go into like general revenue and there should be a different kind of program that address the issue with media. And I'm sure that there are many different ways that

that could be set up to provide a positive way of funding media that is not serving government incentives, but is serving the public good and what needs to come of that. Totally. I mean, the last thing I would just say about that, I suppose, is that traditional mainstream media organizations have been gatekeepers of information. They've sat between the public and those who hold power. Often that's resulted in those who hold power being held accountable, but it has also resulted in the opposite being true and things being covered up and the public being lied to. And what you can see with something like news showcase, the proposal to set up essentially a form of a newspaper, but from diverse sources

in an online format on something like Google is that you get another gatekeeper there. This is then what becomes legitimate news. This is then an arbitrator curated set of content that is the truth and it doesn't allow for that great thing that came about as a result of the development of the web, which is diverse content. I mean, there are problems with that, of course, but the diversity of the content for news and commentary that's available on the web has its own problems. But you can see how these kinds of proposals, and particularly even Google's negotiated schemes behind the scenes to avoid being forced to do it through something like this proposed code, sets up again this system of gatekeepers of information, of what is considered legitimate opinion or analysis. And it loses, I think, one of the

great things that we've seen, which is the breakdown of that gatekeeping role, or at least doesn't maximize what comes from that that's positive, which is a big problem. It's very disappointing and kind of a squandering of the potential of the web. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think we see that in so many cases where the tech platforms are constantly trying to set themselves up in the gatekeepers in new markets or with new types of media. So it's not a surprise to see it coming to news as well in a different form because it's already served that role in another sense for a while. So obviously the bill for this media code is now before the Australian Parliament. So what do you expect to happen with the code moving forward now? Do you expect it to pass and do you expect it to be changed in any significant way?

The parliamentary committee heard from Google where they made that threat to withdraw from the market. They were scrutinizing the bill to see if there were any amendments that should be made before it was put to the parliament. Their one recommendation is that the bill should be passed. So not a very critical process. What I would say is I think it's likely to pass. I think that's

disappointing and I think there'll be many unintended consequences, but it is something I think that politicians think is a winner. What it has the capacity to do is currently it's focused on Google and Facebook, but that definition of platforms within the code can be expanded. So, it could start to include other kinds of platforms as well without difficulty. I think that is the long-term intention of the government to expand the number of platforms to which this applies. The criteria for news organisations, which has minimum thresholds that you have to meet in terms of revenue and the content that's produced, it's got to be predominantly for Australia and the like. I don't think those things will change. So I think it will be a set of criteria you have to meet in order to access this system. And I think it will continue to exclude a lot of

independent content makers. So I think that will remain, but the potential expansion is who it applies to at the tech platform side. And I can see a situation where that gets expanded over time. I wanted to end by asking you, at the beginning, you talked about how the media code was one piece in this larger report from the Competition Authority about what could be done to deal with the tech platforms. And so I wonder, were there any other interesting ideas in that report? And do you think that the government will take any of them up? Or is there anything else interesting that's happening in Australian tech policy that you think people should know about? Yeah, that's a great question. There are a few other things that I think are interesting. Some of them are quite general, but they've made a lot of recommendations around mergers and things like that. They're all good in my view. There's a lot of potential for antitrust and competition law to be an effective bulwark against this kind of problem that we see in concentration of platforms and the centralization of the web. It's difficult when you're not in the

United States where these companies are headquartered, of course. So I think where we're going to see the key ways in which that plays out is in the US. And I'm very interested to see how the Biden administration deals with this, in part because it feels very different to the Obama administration in some ways, in that there's a huge sentiment among even people within the Democrats, but also the public generally, that antitrust needs to be reformed. But I think in some ways, it's very similar to the Obama administration in that they feel very close to Silicon Valley in certain ways. And I wonder how much Silicon Valley will get to influence that. There are many recommendations for our regulator, at least. One of the pivotal ones is a review of our privacy laws, which is long overdue. So,

they're decades old, I think completely ill-equipped for our current moment. And that has been announced. And so, we're hurriedly making submissions and advocating on that digital rights watch and trying to talk about how we could update privacy laws to reflect the challenges we faced in the 21st century. But I do wonder whether there'll be the same appetite to reform aggressively in that respect as there has been with respect to this issue. And that's my kind of worry that some of these things will be left to squander or they'll be introduced in ways that are acceptable to industry. So, you know, things like regulating privacy or information that might come about, financial information for exchange with financial institutions. There's some ways in which that could be reformed, but I think industry is quite powerful in having their voice

heard in how that might work. So, I'm a bit less convinced that it's going to be either aggressively reformed or tackled or that there won't be ways in which industry gets its voice heard in a more effective way that might mean that the rules don't favour users again. So, you know, there's no reason why we can't improve the laws as they apply to give users more control of their information to undermine that business model of the web that is based on monetising data. But I'd be surprised if our government is as keen to take on that challenge as it has been to take on this one. Yeah, no, I think that's a good point. And we're dealing with the update of the privacy laws right now in Canada. So I completely understand what you're talking about. I really appreciate

you coming on and kind of giving us an overview of what's happening with this media code in Australia for Australian listeners and people who are interested in what's happening in Australia, but also for people who are in other jurisdictions who might be having to deal with this down the road. Lizzie, I love chatting with you about these issues, getting your insight on this. Thanks so much for taking the time. Oh, thanks so much for having me on. It's always great to talk to you, Paris. Lizzie O'Shea is a human rights lawyer, founder of Digital Rights Watch, and the author of Future Histories, what Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune can teach us about digital technology. You can also follow Lizzie on Twitter at Lizzie underscore O'Shea.

You can follow me at Paris Marks, and you can follow the show at Tech Won't Save Us. Tech Won't Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media Network, and you can find out more information about that at harbingermedianetwork.com. And if you want to support the work that I put into making this show every week, you can go to patreon.com slash techwontsaveus and become a supporter. Thanks for listening. Thank you.