{"id":24431,"date":"2026-06-04T03:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T03:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/24431\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T03:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T03:44:17","slug":"meta-hits-out-at-labors-plan-to-make-tech-giants-pay-for-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/24431\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta hits out at Labor’s plan to make tech giants pay for news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tech giant Meta has hit out at the Australian government’s plan to make social media companies pay for news, calling it a “grossly unfair” and “discriminatory tax”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a blog post overnight, Meta shared its formal response to Labor’s News Bargaining Incentive, which would see digital platforms taxed up to 2.25 per cent of their Australian revenue<\/a> unless they strike deals to pay for local journalism.<\/p>\n

“Our position is clear: this law is poorly designed, grossly unfair, and will fail to deliver a diverse and sustainable news industry,” said Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

“We are vehemently opposed to this legislation.<\/p>\n

“It is discriminatory, economically incoherent, and will not deliver the sustainable news sector that Australian journalists and audiences deserve.”<\/p>\n

Under the draft legislation, which specifically targets Meta, Google and TikTok, any tax raised would be distributed to local news organisations based on the number of journalists they employ.<\/p>\n

Big tech hits back at Labor’s news payment plan<\/a><\/p>\n

US tech giant Meta has condemned Labor’s plan to tax large digital platforms that fail to pay for using Australian journalism as “government-mandated transfer of wealth”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Companies can reduce or even eliminate their tax bill by making deals with media organisations to pay for their use of news content.<\/p>\n

Meta, Google and TikTok have been singled out based on a combination of their Australian revenues and large numbers of domestic users.<\/p>\n

The exclusion of platforms like Microsoft, Snapchat and OpenAI has been criticised by the companies.<\/p>\n

“It is a discriminatory tax, applied only to a handful of foreign companies,” Meta said.<\/p>\n

“Call it what it is: a discriminatory, retroactive tax targeting a handful of foreign companies while competitors offering comparable services face no equivalent obligation.”<\/p>\n

Google has also criticised the plan<\/a> and says it ignores the fact the company already has commercial agreements with more than 90 news businesses and 226 outlets in Australia.<\/p>\n

The proposed laws aim to close a loophole that allowed social media companies to strip news from their platforms.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Meta refused to renew deals with news organisations<\/a> initially made under the News Media Bargaining Code and removed news from its platforms to avoid paying for the content.<\/p>\n

Meta had previously announced it would not renew content deals with news publishers in the United States, Britain, France and Germany.<\/p>\n

Labor’s new incentive proposal would apply to major platforms regardless of whether they hosted news.<\/p>\n

\"Telecommunications<\/p>\n

Anika Wells has defended the plan, which the government estimates will generate up to $250 million in revenue for newsrooms. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

Communications Minister Anika Wells has called the plan to make tech platforms pay for news “only fair”, saying many Australians now use social media to access news.<\/p>\n

“We believe it’s only fair that large digital platforms contribute to the hard work of journalism that enriches their feeds and that drives their revenue,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Platforms should do deals with news organisations. If they decide not to, they will end up paying more.”<\/p>\n

The bargaining incentive has been described by Australian media organisations as a “critical step” toward securing the future of Australian news.<\/p>\n

“If digital platforms fail to pay for the use of the news content from which they profit, then journalism becomes unsustainable,” said a statement released by a broad group of news organisations<\/a>, including the ABC.<\/p>\n

The draft laws will be introduced into parliament later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tech giant Meta has hit out at the Australian government’s plan to make social media companies pay for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,22644,22642,2601,155,22641,22643,22640,154,106,5521],"class_list":["post-24431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-communications-minister-anika-wells","tag-companies","tag-facebook","tag-google","tag-intagram","tag-journalism","tag-media-bargaining-incentive","tag-meta","tag-social-media","tag-tiktok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}