The local media outlets confirmed that minister of broadcasting Willie Jackson said the new legislation will be modelled on similar laws in Australia and Canada, with the UK and the EU considering similar moves.
“It’s not fair that the big digital platforms like Google and Meta get to host and share local news for free. It costs to produce the news and it’s only fair they pay," the local media outlet quoted Jackson.
In April this year, Canada government had informed that they would formulate a bill that would force tech companies to pay local news publishers for content. This was done in an effort to help struggling media companies that have seen online advertising revenue drain away to Silicon Valley’s digital giants.
Drawing on similar reasons, Jackson also stated that making Meta and Google pay for news would ensure an incentive for the digital platforms to reach “high quality voluntary deals" with local news outlets.
Australia in 2021 had passed a law that obligates Google and Meta to strike deals compensating media outlets for news content on their platforms or allow a government-appointed arbitrator to decide how much they should pay.
However, the law that took effect in Australia in March 2021, led to a brief shut down of Facebook news feed in the island nation. Recently, the Australian government also noted that their policy to charge the big tech companies for local news turned out to be ‘successful’.
In a report, Australia’s Treasury said that media outlets had signed more than 30 deals compensating them for news shared on Google and Facebook.
