Australia will not change proposed laws that would make Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook pay news outlets for content, a senior lawmaker said on Monday, despite vocal opposition from the Big Tech firms. Facebook has strongly protested the laws and last week abruptly blocked all news content and several state government and emergency department accounts. “The bill as it stands ... meets the right balance,” Simon Birmingham, Australia’s Minister for Finance, told Australian Broadcasting Corp Radio. Read MoreThe laws would give the government the right to appoint an arbitrator to set content licencing fees if private negotiations fail. Lobby group DIGI, which represents Facebook, Google and other online platforms like Twitter Inc, meanwhile said on Monday that its members had agreed to adopt an industry-wide code of practice to reduce the spread of misinformation online.

Source: Standard Digital February 22, 2021 07:02 UTC