Australia throws down with digital platforms (and misses the mark)

I spent several years in Brussels watching the copyright battle from its sidelines. To be honest, I was delighted that my organization wasn’t working on it at the time — partially because it seemed like a dark vortex where other people’s energy went to wither and partially because we were already stretched covering a dozen other topics noone gave a hoot about. So direct involvement could be avoided, but awarness certainly could not.

And I don’t want to get into the ins and outs of copyright now, though suffice it to say I’ve finally come around to embracing the responsibility of having an opinion in this space as a digital rights activist.

Today I want to very briefly talk about the ACCC’s News Media Bargaining Code which is so misguided it has cooed me out of the comfort of a quiet Friday night and onto Medium. And the code isn’t about copyright either, but it has the hallmarks and trimmings of what the ancillary copyright link tax aspired to be under EU rules. Hence the ominous foreword.

If you want background to what I’m about to say:

• ACCC News Media Bargaining Code [website]
• Google response [article featuring rebuttal by ACCC]

TL;DR — the news corporations (imp definition) are hurting in the online era with digital platforms absorbing a significant portion of advertising dollars, so the ACCC (as the regulator) has taken it upon itself to give the news corps a hand and give them a mechanism to negotiate with the platforms directly.

My professional problem here is three-fold:

First of all, I’m upset that the ACCC isn’t actually advocating for consumers. That digital platforms inquiry was long, I wrote a lot of submissions about freedom of expression, privacy and the need for a data protection framework in Australia. And the product is… letting news corporations better profit from the very same exploitative model ACCC should be protecting consumers from. Letting the traditional gatekeepers get more of the cash from exploitative data mining models. I categorically object to this being the first actionable outcome of the inquiry. ACCC you have a job to protect consumers, GO DO IT and stop trying to buy goodwill with the news empires.

Second, I’ve only been here a year and a half and I’m already annoyed with the news industry’s inability to see anything beyond its own self-interest. This is a power grab for large media corporations, don’t even try to convince me that small media companies/individuals are in any position to get the same sort of deals that establishment news outlets are going to get even if they are allowed to negotiate, which, not everyone is able to under the definition of what consitutes “news” in the draft Bill. The giants are selling out an entire sector in pursuit of their own advertising-based business model which was obsolete before I hit highschool. They could move on, restructure and force sector change. Alas no, here they are with puppy eyes directly staring at ACCC, hands outstretched to digital platforms to rain them cash.

Third, digital platforms need to do better. Overall. All of them. Partially they should do that work themselves, partially we need strong regulatory frameworks. I am puzzled why this code is targeted at Google and Facebook (with any number of platforms to be added whenever the Treasury has a whim?), because all sorts of digital platforms have built their empires on top of collecting and reselling an unchecked amount of user data, and on the back of individual content creators (Youtube, Spotify, et al). There is a thriving data aggregation and resale industry. Moreover, if there is any platform that brings me the news it is certainly Twitter, maybe I don’t have the right population sample, but I can pinky promise you noone I know goes on Facebook with the intention to “get the news.” They go there to stalk old acquaintances, laugh at memes and blare their political opinions to their friend group. And no doubt that ALL of these internet companies are in dire need of regulatory direction, which the ACCC is doing very little about. Again, back to my first point.

I am particularly angry that this approach leaves black and queer content creators completely out of the game — they are tragically underrepresented in the Aussie news corps* so this is further insult to injury to them. Also to us, because gosh they tell better stories than white men do. I’m upset that our data is still going to be mercilessly collected, our activity online routinely documented, and that my artist friends receive fragments of cents per play of their work (hi Spotify, pls pay artists).

*I refer you to this article about how cows are better represented on Aussie media than POC.

ACCC needs to do better. Or the Treasury needs to rubberstamp more of the ACCC recommendations to go forward (I’m not sure who is most to blame here for butchering the digital platforms inquiry this way), either way, they need to advocate for consumers and for all sectors — not just the ones with the biggest mouthpiece. There are a lot of different financing models that were proposed which would resource journalism (and regional journalism!) at large, rather than keeping money at the top. At this point, I don’t care where traditional news corporations go to get their cash, if they aren’t going to give a care about anyone but themselves, I certainly won’t lose sleep over them.