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If any australian politician is even semi-competent they will have no trouble presenting it as google trying to strong-arm the nation

stephen_g 6y ago
It might surprise a lot of people from other countries just how few competent politicians there are in the governing party. But the News Ltd and Nine/Fairfax duopoly run a kind of protection racket which helps them retain power, and it'll be the papers that come up with the talking points (they lobbied for the attempted double-dip "media bargaining code" in the first place).
squiggleblaz 6y ago
I think there will be some difficulty about that, since a lot of people in Australia already know that News Ltd owns a majority share in the Liberal party (the balance being owned by the coal industry). Therefore, a lot of people will see this as Google sharing their interests insofar as harming News helps them. Also, liberalism has been sufficiently successful in Australia that the argument "new business should not be compelled to serve interests of old business" will have some currency. Whether these two sectors will be enough to win an election fought on this argument (widely expected in the second half of this year) remains to be seen.
- seunosewa 6y ago
  The notion that corporations are actually allowed to own parties in Australia seems shocking. You mean they are top donors, right?
  - manicdee 6y ago
    The Liberal Party of Australia runs/is run by a think tank called "Institute of Public Affairs" which is in turn run by a bunch of rich people who take marching orders from Murdoch. It doesn't become much more transparent than, say, senior members of the Liberal Party government travelling to the USA to visit Rupert but not any US politicians or diplomats. News Corp may not own the title deeds for any property, but they have all the receipts for money paid and souls bought.
  - stephen_g 6y ago
    Yeah, not literal shares. It’s more that a lot of the staffers working for the conservative party (confusingly called the Liberal Party) come from the News Ltd media and mining companies, and a lot of executives of mining/resource companies and journalists and executives at the Nine/Fairfax and News Ltd. duopoly are ex-politicians, political staffers, etc. - lots of revolving doors between them. For example, the current PM’s chief of staff came straight from Rio Tinto, previous PM Tony Abbot’s chief of staff (Peta Credlin) now has a show on Sky News, as does ex-PM Turnbull’s (Chris Kenny, from when Turnbull was opposition leader), who also writes for The Australian newspaper. On the other side of the duopoly, the chairman of Nine/Fairfax is an ex-Liberal Party treasurer (basically the most powerful cabinet minister apart from the PM), and they held fundraising events for the party at their studios during the last election. So the media run positive stories about the Government, and downplay or fail to run stories about, for example, serious allegations of corruption against multiple cabinet ministers of the Government, while policy proposals from the opposition are scrutinised far more closely and savagely than actual policy from the actual Government, and often rubbished. The media runs character assassinations against opposition party leaders and MPs and puff pieces about the Government ministers, the PM’s wife and her fashion choices, etc. - it’s pretty shameless. Then there are links between Government, the media and big business (again, mostly mining here) through a bunch of think tanks like the IPA (extreme far-right), the Sydney Institute, etc. As long as environmental protections are kept weak enough for the miners, and tax cuts keep being promised for the wealthy, none of them rock the boat.
chrisseaton 6y ago
> presenting it as google trying to strong-arm the nation Sounds like they'd be complying with the law, not trying to strong-arm anyone.
asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
Being able to present something a certain way and it actually being that way are two different things. The nation is considering a law that says, if you link to news you have to pay X. Google is trying to figure out if the money they make from linking to news Y is greater than X. If Y < X, why would they continue linking to news? It's not a strong arm tactic, just a simple cost-benefit move. And it's not a demonstration of market power either. The proposed regulation only applies to companies already deemed to have market power, so only such companies are considering reacting to the regulation this way. But if the law applied universally, you would obviously see the exact same calculation happen at companies that don't have market power. Most would come to the same conclusion as Google seems to have done: it's not worth it to link to news under these terms.

stephen_g 6y ago

It might surprise a lot of people from other countries just how few competent politicians there are in the governing party. But the News Ltd and Nine/Fairfax duopoly run a kind of protection racket which helps them retain power, and it'll be the papers that come up with the talking points (they lobbied for the attempted double-dip "media bargaining code" in the first place).

squiggleblaz 6y ago

I think there will be some difficulty about that, since a lot of people in Australia already know that News Ltd owns a majority share in the Liberal party (the balance being owned by the coal industry). Therefore, a lot of people will see this as Google sharing their interests insofar as harming News helps them. Also, liberalism has been sufficiently successful in Australia that the argument "new business should not be compelled to serve interests of old business" will have some currency. Whether these two sectors will be enough to win an election fought on this argument (widely expected in the second half of this year) remains to be seen.

seunosewa 6y ago
The notion that corporations are actually allowed to own parties in Australia seems shocking. You mean they are top donors, right?
- manicdee 6y ago
  The Liberal Party of Australia runs/is run by a think tank called "Institute of Public Affairs" which is in turn run by a bunch of rich people who take marching orders from Murdoch. It doesn't become much more transparent than, say, senior members of the Liberal Party government travelling to the USA to visit Rupert but not any US politicians or diplomats. News Corp may not own the title deeds for any property, but they have all the receipts for money paid and souls bought.
- stephen_g 6y ago
  Yeah, not literal shares. It’s more that a lot of the staffers working for the conservative party (confusingly called the Liberal Party) come from the News Ltd media and mining companies, and a lot of executives of mining/resource companies and journalists and executives at the Nine/Fairfax and News Ltd. duopoly are ex-politicians, political staffers, etc. - lots of revolving doors between them. For example, the current PM’s chief of staff came straight from Rio Tinto, previous PM Tony Abbot’s chief of staff (Peta Credlin) now has a show on Sky News, as does ex-PM Turnbull’s (Chris Kenny, from when Turnbull was opposition leader), who also writes for The Australian newspaper. On the other side of the duopoly, the chairman of Nine/Fairfax is an ex-Liberal Party treasurer (basically the most powerful cabinet minister apart from the PM), and they held fundraising events for the party at their studios during the last election. So the media run positive stories about the Government, and downplay or fail to run stories about, for example, serious allegations of corruption against multiple cabinet ministers of the Government, while policy proposals from the opposition are scrutinised far more closely and savagely than actual policy from the actual Government, and often rubbished. The media runs character assassinations against opposition party leaders and MPs and puff pieces about the Government ministers, the PM’s wife and her fashion choices, etc. - it’s pretty shameless. Then there are links between Government, the media and big business (again, mostly mining here) through a bunch of think tanks like the IPA (extreme far-right), the Sydney Institute, etc. As long as environmental protections are kept weak enough for the miners, and tax cuts keep being promised for the wealthy, none of them rock the boat.

chrisseaton 6y ago

> presenting it as google trying to strong-arm the nation Sounds like they'd be complying with the law, not trying to strong-arm anyone.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago

Being able to present something a certain way and it actually being that way are two different things. The nation is considering a law that says, if you link to news you have to pay X. Google is trying to figure out if the money they make from linking to news Y is greater than X. If Y < X, why would they continue linking to news? It's not a strong arm tactic, just a simple cost-benefit move. And it's not a demonstration of market power either. The proposed regulation only applies to companies already deemed to have market power, so only such companies are considering reacting to the regulation this way. But if the law applied universally, you would obviously see the exact same calculation happen at companies that don't have market power. Most would come to the same conclusion as Google seems to have done: it's not worth it to link to news under these terms.