Facebook agrees to makes payments to Australia

[paxmao]

It seems that it is actually possible to come to an agreement. Facebook has to pay a tax for using news from Australian media. I would really like to see Europe using a fair taxation for the income generated in Europe as opposed to the current massive lassier-faire.

[jackg]

I hope the small outlets get a good funding out of this and the old/bad ones crash and burn if it comes to Europe.

I think there are quite a few countries in Europe that suffer with the US and UK problem of not giving a fair centristic approach to news coverage and entangle theirs and the government's ideology into their own agenda. Opinions are worse than facts for a company to cover especially when it's a governmental opinion.

It does seem weird though that a company can choose to publish somewhere and expect to get paid for it by the platform rather than their readers.. .

[jacafbiz]

It seems that it is actually possible to come to an agreement. Facebook has to pay a tax for using news from Australian media. I would really like to see Europe using a fair taxation for the income generated in Europe as opposed to the current massive lassier-faire.

It will be very difficult for Europe to go that route reason being that America is still one of the best market in the world and if you start taxing US companies, America is going to come after European companies and is going to hurt them more because Americans has more residual income to spend than Europeans.

[paxmao]

I hope the small outlets get a good funding out of this and the old/bad ones crash and burn if it comes to Europe.
...

That would be good, however most legislation that looks like would damage the incumbents (Facebook, Google, big media,...) actually has the oposite effect: raising the barriers to entry of the smaller companies.

[Dragonfund]

It seems that it is actually possible to come to an agreement. Facebook has to pay a tax for using news from Australian media. I would really like to see Europe using a fair taxation for the income generated in Europe as opposed to the current massive lassier-faire.

It's still a rebranded kind of banking with huge fees and a delay which will definitely requires heavy documentation of users before allow to send and receive transactions from other regions. I don't like centralized exchanges that much but I will prefer and exchange transfer with a a centralized exchange and convert to fiat than Facebook platform. We shouldn't forget that Facebook in the past has tempered and share users data with a third persons company.

What happen to their stablecoins Libra, there were some news around December last year that they will be going public this quarter 2021 but it seems they have been delay as usual.

[Ucy]

Never knew the government and the social media could dictate to the media where/how to operate and serve their customers to the extent of preventing them from doing their jobs on the social media. Thought they are supposed to be independent. The whole event kind of make things seem like they aren't that independent.
By the way, I wondered if that affected the whole media in the country or just the mainstream media?

[iv4n]

It seems that it is actually possible to come to an agreement. Facebook has to pay a tax for using news from Australian media. I would really like to see Europe using a fair taxation for the income generated in Europe as opposed to the current massive lassier-faire.

As I read the news from today they come to an agreement! They didn't reveal everything, just some things... who wish to know more will read in some news!
This is very interesting by the way! I was waiting to see what will Australia do! This opened a door for other countries to make a similar move! Does this mean a big loss for Facebook? After all, they will have to give up some part of their profit! If other countries join, the part they will have to give up will just get bigger!

[fiulpro]

It seems that it is actually possible to come to an agreement. Facebook has to pay a tax for using news from Australian media. I would really like to see Europe using a fair taxation for the income generated in Europe as opposed to the current massive lassier-faire.

Honestly Facebook and Instagram earns millions by selling our information ℹ️ to other people if a country is asking them to pay taxes for usage of their country's media then I do think they cannot clap back at them. Every single site , every single product you search would be right in your Facebook feed now these people have started doing it way too normally and I do think they should at least be dragged to the court but then again people do check the box with terms and conditions.
What else can we do now? Even instagram is now under their control , I feel like they are trying to make a personal web which is too intricate more like tracking each and every person on this planet which is kinda scary . They should pay up much more than what they are asked to pay right now. They honestly owe much more to the general public and to the people , Australia demanding them tax would be like the stepping stone.

It seems that it is actually possible to come to an agreement. Facebook has to pay a tax for using news from Australian media. I would really like to see Europe using a fair taxation for the income generated in Europe as opposed to the current massive lassier-faire.

As I read the news from today they come to an agreement! They didn't reveal everything, just some things... who wish to know more will read in some news!
This is very interesting by the way! I was waiting to see what will Australia do! This opened a door for other countries to make a similar move! Does this mean a big loss for Facebook? After all, they will have to give up some part of their profit! If other countries join, the part they will have to give up will just get bigger!

Even every individual on facebook should be paid for using their personal information to gain profits from every website in the world!

[Clement Kaliyar]

It seems that it is actually possible to come to an agreement. Facebook has to pay a tax for using news from Australian media. I would really like to see Europe using a fair taxation for the income generated in Europe as opposed to the current massive lassier-faire.

If all the countries start to ask to pay taxes for the news published it is not going to be a great business model for anyone. If Facebook really agrees and bow down to the Australian government then they will be bowing down to all the government around the world and having a control over the contents published by the government is not a good sign.

[slapper]

This can lead to another revolution in other countries which will ask Facebook to pay tax on news, too. If all country starts asking for money, it will be a good sign to stop Facebook from becoming too much powerful. However, on the other hand, governments decide which and what news can be published. This strongly affects the human right of many third world countries

[masterzino]

It seems that it is actually possible to come to an agreement. Facebook has to pay a tax for using news from Australian media. I would really like to see Europe using a fair taxation for the income generated in Europe as opposed to the current massive lassier-faire.

Of course FB will agree. Losing First World markets like Australia or France, where they are obligated to pay too, could be devastating.

I'm more curious will the Australia and France actions create a domino effect that will change the internet as we know it.

[Twentyonepaylots]

I believe small media outlets will benefit the most out of thus which will then spark a new age of journalism and news reporting inside Australia. Either it goes for the better or not, but knowing how Almost all Independent press is not backed and funded by private parties but instead by the people themselves, we can best believe that Australia on this new age of journalism will rise past media manipulation and fake news.

[magneto]

This will definitely set an important precedent for the rest of the world.

Other countries will now use this as leverage against Facebook to try to force them into paying for content - especially with the powerful lobby of traditional print/television media that they still hold.

Also, perhaps this will trigger a mass selloff of tech stocks (which has already started to happen for FB over the past month or so). When people realise that these legislations will affect much more than just FB, we could see the unwinding of the entire tech bubble as a matter of some certainty.

[Hydrogen]

Facebook has to pay a tax for using news from Australian media.

Does australia pay the US a tax for using news from america?

Higher taxes on news media translates to more paywalls and lower accessability for articles, information and current events.

This isn't necessarily 100% negative. It could pave the way to a shift towards independent news media. A greater preference towards anonymous bloggers and unaffiliated freelancers as legitimate sources of information.

As opposed to the current centralized & monolithic structure where a tiny percentage of big corporations and wealthy billionaires own 99% of the news media published.

[verita1]

I agree to the passage of the new Australian media law.
I don't understand why internet giants like Facebook and Google refuse.
News work is very valuable to everyone. It is the journalistic effort of men and women who are sometimes anonymous heroes and sincerely for me it is priceless, it is invaluable.
I think that Facebook and Google who have made money because they offered us a useful and revolutionary product for that time should consider their position.
In this time of pandemic, it made us reveal some realities that were about to explode and one of them is how difficult it is to sustain the digital news media.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/australia-passes-law-forcing-google-and-facebook-to-pay-news-publications/

[jackg]

It will be very difficult for Europe to go that route reason being that America is still one of the best market in the world and if you start taxing US companies, America is going to come after European companies and is going to hurt them more because Americans has more residual income to spend than Europeans.

But Europe has the biggest economy overall so the US can't do too much with sanctions, you still share a land border with one of our allies too...

That would be good, however most legislation that looks like would damage the incumbents (Facebook, Google, big media,...) actually has the oposite effect: raising the barriers to entry of the smaller companies.

Yeah I suppose they'd have to do a lot of this stuff as an overall thing. Like how YouTube pays everyone that allows ads on their videos and get a certain number of views, a similar thing could be done for Facebook but it could reflect proportional following interaction (if a small news company has 1000 followers and 900 actively look at what they're ousting and interact in some way then they should do better than another company with 10000 followers and 2500 interactions, or a large news company with millions of followers and only 200 reactions)...

[nancy]

This could be a risky precedent for other social networks and other countries

[Kittygalore]

This could be a risky precedent for other social networks and other countries

This is not risky, this is needed. They have been benefiting for a long time and they don't seem to be any help to the community so I think that paying is a good thing to contribute to society, what is risky is social medias do not pay anything but continues to consume resources which could have been used otherwise.

[aesma]

In France Google & co were forced to make deals with newspapers etc. to pay for the articles. I'm not sure why things turned sour in Australia, maybe the companies thought they could bully a smaller (population, economy) country into submission ?

Separately there is also a French tax on large digital companies (Amazon, Google etc.) that is causing more issue, Trump wasn't happy about it (despite hating these companies), there are international talks to make the tax universal, basically these companies would pay a few % of their income in each country to that country. Trump made the talks difficult, let's hope they can resume now.

[jaysabi]

I hope the small outlets get a good funding out of this and the old/bad ones crash and burn if it comes to Europe.

I think there are quite a few countries in Europe that suffer with the US and UK problem of not giving a fair centristic approach to news coverage and entangle theirs and the government's ideology into their own agenda. Opinions are worse than facts for a company to cover especially when it's a governmental opinion.

It does seem weird though that a company can choose to publish somewhere and expect to get paid for it by the platform rather than their readers.. .

I think the issue is rather that facebook profits off the work of the publishers without any license or agreement about use. It seems totally appropriate that publishers should be able to receive something akin to a licensing fee for facebook profiting off people sharing their work.