{"id":639595,"date":"2026-04-30T02:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T02:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639595\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T02:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T02:12:14","slug":"australias-big-tech-levy-labelled-extortion-by-usa-information-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639595\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia’s Big Tech levy labelled ‘extortion’ by USA | Information Age"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t \"A<\/p>\n

The administration of US President Donald Trump (left) has slammed Australia’s plan to tax Big Tech companies for using news content. Image: Australian Government \/ Facebook<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has labelled the Australian government\u2019s proposed new levy on Big Tech \u201cforeign extortion\u201d, while a group representing technology firms has called for \u201ctargeted trade remedies\u201d in retaliation.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this week unveiled draft legislation for a News Bargaining Incentive, which will impose a levy on a handful of large social media firms unless they enter revenue-sharing deals with local news companies for the use of their content.<\/p>\n

The levy will be set at 2.25 per cent of a company\u2019s local revenues, but this will be offset if they have entered deals with Australian news organisations.<\/p>\n

It will apply to social media platforms and search engines with annual Australian revenue over $250 million, and 5 million Australian users for social media platforms or 10 million for search engines.<\/p>\n

Currently this means the levy will apply to just Facebook and Instagram\u2019s parent company Meta, Google\u2019s parent company Alphabet, and TikTok.<\/p>\n

All charges collected by the federal government will be distributed to media companies in Australia.<\/p>\n

The Incentive will replace the Morrison government\u2019s News Media Bargaining Code<\/a>, which forced designated social media firms to enter arbitration to work out revenue-sharing deals. No company was designated under that code.<\/p>\n

Labor\u2019s reforms aim to prevent companies simply removing news content from their platforms to avoid any obligations, the federal government said.<\/p>\n

This was a tactic that Facebook briefly employed when the initial Bargaining Code was being debated in parliament in 2021.<\/p>\n

Calls for reforms to the Bargaining Code have been growing since Meta abandoned its deals with Australian news companies<\/a> in early 2024, representing a $70 million annual loss to the media industry.<\/p>\n

The new plan is expected to raise $250 million annually to go towards Australian journalism, the federal government said.<\/p>\n

\"\"

\nPrime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled draft legislation for a News Bargaining Incentive this week. Image: Australian Parliament \/ YouTube<\/p>\n

Backlash from Trump administration, Google, and Meta<\/p>\n

The Albanese government first announced the new scheme 18 months ago, but there has been little progress since, with concerns over potential retaliation from US President Donald Trump\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the US government hit out at the Incentive this week after the Australian government signalled its intent to move forward with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump is committed to defending America\u2019s leading technology sector from digital services taxes and other forms of foreign extortion,\u201d a Trump administration spokesperson told Australian media on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump administration will continue to address these issues with our trading partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which represents companies such as Meta and Google, labelled the plan \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d, and urged the US government to \u201cpublicly and forcefully challenge the draft measure, including through targeted trade remedies\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Incentive is discriminatory in both design and effect, singling out predominantly US firms while distorting digital markets and undermining open internet principles,\u201d the organisation said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Google and Meta have also separately lashed out at the scheme.<\/p>\n

Google pointed to its existing deals with 90 news businesses and 226 outlets, and said the Incentive was not needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe reject the need for this tax,\u201d a company spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt ignores the fact that Google already has commercial agreements with the news industry, misunderstands how the ad market changed and mandates payments from some companies while arbitrarily excluding platforms like Microsoft, Snapchat and OpenAI \u2013 despite the major shift in how people consume news.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Meta said the plan was \u201cnothing more than a digital services tax\u201d.<\/p>\n

The government has confirmed that AI platforms will not be included in the scheme after this was identified as a \u201ckey policy issue\u201d, and issues surrounding the impact of these technologies on the media industry will be managed through other processes.<\/p>\n

A \u2018critical step\u2019<\/p>\n

Albanese said the Incentive was about backing Australian journalists and news.<\/p>\n

\u201cJournalists are the lifeblood of Australia\u2019s media sector, playing a vital role in keeping communities informed about the news that matters to them,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cLocal news matters to local communities and these stories can\u2019t be told without Australian journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government will consult on the draft legislation until 18 May, and plans to introduce the bill to parliament in the winter sitting period.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s largest media companies welcomed the reforms in a joint statement, saying it was a \u201ccritical step toward securing the future of Australian news\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf digital platforms fail to pay for the use of news content from which they profit then journalism becomes unsustainable,\u201d the media organisations said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The administration of US President Donald Trump (left) has slammed Australia’s plan to tax Big Tech companies for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-639595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}