The Australian Bargaining Code: Fifty years from now, will January 26 be celebrated as Google Day?

Perhaps the best result from the current stand-off over Australia’s proposed bargaining code legislation would be for Google to stop offering its search engine in Australia — and then, immediately after, for the Senate inquiry to crack down on News Corp’s political meddling and misinformation.

It would likely benefit both the Australian media landscape and the broader Internet. It would likely benefit us all.

The only people it wouldn’t benefit are the owners of the Australian media — namely Rupert Murdoch and associates — who, ironically, have pushed hardest for the bargaining code.

Google knows this. Its recent threat to withdraw from Australia is meant to frighten these Murdochian monsters. If you force us to pay you, Google is saying, we’ll stop sending Australian consumers to your web properties.

One of Google’s biggest mistakes here, however, was to take a page from Trump’s book and try to incite the Australian public against its own elected government, as a kind of megaphonic mob. Google spent heavily on ads, not just through its own Advertising engine (so all across the web) but through rarely used space on its search engine home page.

The ads spewed largely disingenuous arguments — boldface lies in fact — about Google’s role in the Australian media. For example, the idea that Google only links to news, and doesn’t republish news, is not only facile, it’s been thoroughly debunked (Google is already paying for news feeds in Europe).

It’s also anti-journalism. Real news requires multiple sources, editors, accountability. It’s not cheap. Google, of all organisations, should know the importance of professional journalism. It should, after all that’s happened over the last four years, understand the consequences — as in the possible death of a democracy — when you mix real news with made-up stories.

Speaking of facile…Melanie Silva, the managing director of Google Australia and New Zealand, put it this way: Imagine recommending a few cafes to a friend, “and then you get a bill to pay all the coffee shops.”

Google loves to make itself small and innocent, a close friend “helping with your homework, or a good dinner recipe, or directions to the local takeaway shop” — conveniently ignoring the role of journalism in society. (Unlike Google, by the way, the ACCC’s code is very clear about defining what a news organisation is).

Google, Facebook, News Corp — they all share a common trait: A disrespect for democracy. And with that, a disrespect for our intelligence, a desire to dumb people down. They love it when we see the media as nothing more than eye-catching entertainment, or a coffee guide, or directions for takeaway food; and not as a tool essential for democratic communication.

The fact is, a well designed search engine can strengthen a democracy. A badly designed one can destroy it.

And no, the Australian bargaining code is not anti-Internet. Google helped push this narrative via Tim Berners-Lee, one of the “founders of the web,” who raised legitimate concerns about setting a precedent with hypertext links. But the bargaining code only addresses platforms such as Facebook and Google.

Or to put it in terms Ms. Silva can better understand: We can all recommend coffee places to our friends without receiving bills. But if we’re “organising the world’s information” and making over $70 billion a year, well, then yes, we’ll receive a bill. Besides, let’s be real: The Internet was thriving, dynamic, bursting with innovation before Google transformed so much of it into an advertising engine which harvests personal data for profit.

Remember, Google is a monopolistic company that has retained its market dominance largely by fooling regulators into thinking it’s just a harmless, friendly, do-no-evil search engine and not a gigantic media and advertising company, subject to hard-won, long-standing media laws, lessons, privacy and ethical standards. Facebook profited from a similar position of innocence. Hey, we’re just a social network, bringing the world together. What’s the harm in that?

We’ve seen the harm in that. Many years of harm. If anything, the government is being generous by not forcing these Internet behemoths to pay damages.

The only real problem with Australia enforcing its bargaining code on Google and Facebook is that it comes 10 years too late. It’s after the fact. It’s not a clear-sighted response on behalf of the interests of all Australians. It took years of venal lobbying from News Corp, which really cares nothing about the Australian public.

Where was the Australian government 10 years ago? How did it allow News Corp to dominate the media and ignore Indigenous voices, climate science, income disparities? Why didn’t Australia develop its own search engine (they were not very expensive to build at the time)? Why is Australia only now talking about an ABC-run social network, so many years after social media took over the world?

Ultimately, what will the Australian government do to encourage tech media innovations going forward, and how will it make sure the technology promotes a healthy public discourse, especially ensuring Indigenous voices can participate on equal terms?

Five years ago, an Australian entrepreneur designed an app called “TalkTime” which allowed live, open, real-time podcasting channels. However, there were few Australian investors or government programs available to support, or even understand, such an innovation. Then, five years later, some developers in Silicon Valley produced the exact same app, called Clubhouse. Today, just a few months after its release, Clubhouse — which for less than few hundred thousand dollars could have been an Australian-owned entity — is already valued at over US$1 billion.

So let’s make sure the government also supports the Australian public in developing a truly dynamic, inclusive, democracy-promoting media landscape, outside the ugly talons of News Corp. (An ABC-run social network could be a good start here).

And let’s make sure the Australia government is thinking now, today, about where Australia’s media landscape will be in 5–10 years. What new, seemingly innocuous technologies — a lot of A.I. tech comes to mind (such as AWS) — need regulation now, before Australia once again finds itself paying foreign monopolies to access valuable information created by its own citizens.