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Comment by antiloper | Hacker News Reader

The article doesn't link to the text of the law, but from what the article says the law will make it mandatory for Facebook to enter into agreements with news outlets, whether they want to or not (otherwise they'll be ""fined"" millions of AUD)

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That is what the Canadian law said. This was "if Meta is showing news content".

Contrary to the law's assumption, news is worth hardly anything to Meta, so they just stopped showing it.

Does the Australian law really say:

1. You must show news, even if you don't want to

2. You must pay to do so

3. The rate will be determined by negotiation with the people you are paying

4. You cannot say no to them in aggregate

I have my doubts, but if it does I still doubt it will get the results the govt wants. The problem is news is not valuable to Meta.

Yeah, the way it's being discussed, it does seem like the law is trying to impose those four restrictions. But that seems like compelled speech...I know too little about Australian law, but that seems like a bad precedent, in the sense that government is now forcing private entities to publish news from sites they specify and pay for the privilege. It's not quite state media, but it adjacent to it.

The incentives are horrible. Piss off the government and you won't be included in the pool of sites that are eligible for shakedown money. Piss off Google / Meta and they will throw you out in the cold and make a deal with another site in the pool.

The Australian government has probably learned from the Canadians and set the law up so the tax is more successful. Recall that the government has the power to levy unfair taxes and handouts in principle, so it doesn't matter all that much that their claimed reasoning is silly. This looks to be equivalent to a social media tax and an Australian news handout, just bundled together for rhetorical purposes (and with a bizarre negotiating element in a welfare transfer that really just looks like beating around the bush to me).

Seems like a recipe for massive US tariffs . We will see exactly what all the bribes and sucking up gets big tech.

I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion on this platform but I think the US should protect companies domiciled in the US from what amount to a shakedown by foreign governments. Legal protection and representation play a big role in where a company chooses to domicile. That's partly what the taxes are for. It's mostly US stockholders that own these companies. So they're really just screwing over people w Meta in their 401k and pension funds (many of which are public).

Meta pays an effective federal tax rate of like 3.5%

We owe them nothing

Agreed in principle although I'd say screwing over is strong as this will end up as just a cost of doing business in Australia rather than lead to losses.

Every economy should get value for its resources - no country is obligated to sell things unreasonably cheaply - people's time & attention included.

If it's mandatory to enter into agreements, those aren't agreements, they're mandates.

Hard to call it an "agreement" at that point. I thought one of the fundamental rules of contract law is that it can't be signed under duress.

Did you seriously believe that governments play fair? :-)

A sovereign nation is just that, sovereign. What it decides isn't an agreement.

You may not want to obey the posted speed limits or pay something the law demands, but that's not about a contract you sign or don't, it's a decision made by a sovereign nation.

Meta will have the option of not posting links to Australian media. But if it does post that, the law applies, and "agreement" is irrelevant.

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