Send to a Friend

BeeePollen's avatar

Recent disputes between tech platforms and journalistic outlets?

Asked by BeeePollen (422points) February 27th, 2021

There have recently been some disputes between journalistic outlets (and other content providers) and tech companies like Facebook and Google, about whether various governments should require tech companies to pay newspapers for certain content.

For example:
– The latest example I know of involves the dispute between [Facebook and Australia](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56116738) (although other companies are having similar interactions with Australia), over a law that will “force tech giants to pay for news content on their platforms.”
– Something similar happened between [Google and Spain](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/11/google-news-spain-to-close-in-response-to-tax-on-story-links), over a law that “requires services that post links and excerpts of news articles to pay a fee.”

Is it true that these disputes
1. are entirely about news-specific features of tech platforms (like google news and Facebook news), and
2. have nothing at all to do with “non-news-specific” features (like news articles showing up in google search results, and individuals sharing links to news articles in Facebook posts)?

If so, then it is true that the demands of countries like Australia (and maybe Spain) cover only a small percentage of the news content used by companies like google and Facebook?

(Of course, even if that’s true, it might not be a small percentage of the total “missed” ad revenue for the journalistic outlets.)

Using Fluther

or

Using Email

Separate multiple emails with commas.
We’ll only use these emails for this message.