Amendments to the Federal Treasurer’s media bargaining code will be tabled in the New Year.
In a nutshell, if passed, it will mean that in Australia, Facebook and Google can only publish articles from the Murdoch media, Kerry Stokes media, and Fairfax/Channel 9.
Basically, it will be ensure that the voices of independent (or dissenting) media is muffled in the lead up to the next election.
Approximately 30 online media sites and rural newspapers have joined together to fight this. There are a number of steps we need to take, with the first being an e-Petition submitted to the Parliament of Australia: Petition EN3530 – Designate Google & Facebook to support public interest journalism, as shown below:
Terms:
- Reason: Under the News Media Bargaining Code Google and Facebook have struck deals with a small number of media outlets. However, they have refused to negotiate with the majority of Australian news providers – including a range of high-quality outlets that meet the criteria set out in the Code. By publishing public interest journalism these providers fight misinformation and inject expertise into the media ecosystem. Only designation by the Treasurer can bring Facebook to the negotiation table.
- Request: We therefore ask the House to request that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg “designate” Google and Facebook under the News Media Bargaining Code to force Google and Facebook to negotiate payment for all publishers who genuinely serve the public interest.
e-Petitions that collect 20,000 names are scheduled for debate in the House.
If we can generate 20,000 signatures on our petition we will make sure that Josh Frydenberg and the Parliament know that a handful of deals with a few media conglomerates is not good enough. We will force the Parliament to debate both Facebook AND Google. We will apply real political pressure on the Silicon Valley do a deal with us.
Our petition has only just been lodged, and we only have until the 24th of November to collect 20,000 signatures.
We urge you to sign our petition. Independent media is fighting for its survival.
This is only Step 1 of our fight. Details of Step 2 will be published in the near future.
Thanking you in advance.
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