US attacks Australia's plan to make Google and Facebook pay for news
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
"They're a private country they can do what they like. If Google and Facebook don't like it they can make their own Australia"
Competitive. Competition. In Australia. Who "competes" with these "specific players". No other websites even come close.
This is a sad display of US financial leverage in favour of two companies that need no such help. If anything they need to be reigned in as they decimate foreign media.
Trump must have some grudge against Australia to allow this pressure.
How does directing traffic to a media site "decimate" it?
If such is detrimental, then Australian authorities should be happy to see it stop, no? They are not.
https://news.trust.org/item/20210114053955-8glv8
It's decimating but they don't want it to stop? What?!?
Basically, they just tipped their hand. This shows that what we really have here is a sad display of an attempted and targeted shakedown of foreign entities by Australian government. Media impact is the best justification they could derive -- or were somehow influenced to derive.
By the way, I am no fan of either Scroogle or Facecrook. But the idea that they are collecting $ billions at the expense of Australian media content (aka Rupert Murdock) is absurd. If content theft was really the issue, existing laws could/would be applied to address it.
Once again a free trade agreement being used to limit a nation's ability to make policy according to their needs.
FTAs should not be weaponized like this. It is counterproductive to the goal of free trade; countries don't want to open themselves up to litigation or litigious trading partners unnecessarily.