Australia proposes levy on tech firms not paying news outlets

SYDNEY: Australia on Tuesday released draft legislation that would impose a tax on major technology companies including Meta, Google and TikTok unless they enter voluntary payment agreements with local news organisations.

The move comes as traditional media outlets globally face mounting pressure as audiences increasingly access news through social media platforms. Australia’s plan is aimed at requiring large digital companies to compensate domestic publishers for news content shared on their services that helps attract traffic.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Meta, Google and TikTok would be given an opportunity to reach content agreements with Australian news publishers. If they do not, they would face a mandatory levy equal to 2.25 percent of their Australian revenue.

“Large digital platforms cannot avoid their obligations under the news media bargaining code,” Albanese told reporters. “At this point the three organisations are Meta, Google and TikTok.”

According to Albanese, the proposed changes are intended to close a gap in an earlier media law that allowed companies to avoid the levy by removing news from their platforms. The three firms were identified on the basis of their Australian revenues and their large domestic user bases. “What we are encouraging is for them to sit down with news organisations and get these deals done,” Albanese said.

He also said journalism needed to have a monetary value attached to it, adding that it should not be used by a large multinational company to generate profits without compensation.

The draft laws are also designed to prevent technology companies from sidestepping the framework by simply taking news off their platforms. When Canberra floated similar measures in 2024, Facebook parent Meta said users in Australia would no longer have access to the news tab.

Meta had earlier said it would not renew content agreements with publishers in the United States, Britain, France and Germany.

Responses from technology companies

Meta said the proposed legislation was “nothing more than a digital services tax”. In a statement, a company spokeswoman said news organisations voluntarily place content on Meta’s platforms because they gain value from doing so, and added that the claim that the company takes their news content was incorrect.

Google said it already had commercial agreements with more than 90 local news businesses and described itself as the only technology company in Australia to have done so. A Google spokesman said the company was reviewing the draft legislation but had made clear that it rejected the need for the tax.

The company also said other major platforms, including Microsoft, Snapchat and OpenAI, had been left out arbitrarily.

Debate over news value online

Supporters of such measures argue that social media platforms draw users through news content while capturing online advertising income that might otherwise have gone to newsrooms already under financial strain.

The proposed Australian framework is the latest effort by the government to ensure that digital platforms pay local media organisations for the value generated by journalism on their services.