The Australian parliament on Thursday passed a news media and digital platforms mandatory bargaining code that will make it mandatory for Google and Facebook to pay media companies for content.
The code will be reviewed within one year of its commencement, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said in a joint statement.
This code helps the media companies to get paid for the content they provide to social media. After three years of comprehensive discussions and analysis, the Australian government has moved to bring in the code.
The new code makes Australia the first country where a government arbitrator will set the rates tech giants have to pay if negotiations with media companies fail.
It is well known that Australia has drafted a bill proposing that media companies pay a fee for publishing news on social media. The decision was strongly opposed by Google and Facebook. In the following suit, Facebook had stopped sharing the news on its social media platform in Australia for a few days.