Liberating the tech bros

Having since served as Australian Ambassador to the US, the former Treasurer is now a source of advice on how to manage the Trump trade wars. And this week the trade wars came to the tech sector as it took objection to, among other things, a new tax. 

On the weekend news broke of the attempt by the Computer and Communications Industry Association to have the US Government pressure the Australian Government to drop current and proposed regulation that it doesn’t like. Included in the CCIA’s lobbying efforts is the News Media Bargaining Code as well as the proposed News Bargaining Incentive. The ‘incentive’ is an offset against this charge that would be applied to deals the platforms make with news publishers. It’s designed to address the possibility of Meta withdrawing from news in Australia if it’s designated under the existing NMBC.

Also on the hit list is any proposal to make streaming services invest in Australian content, despite decades of regulation seeking to protect a small audiovisual market being swamped by the output from much larger English language markets (not just the US).

The real hutzpah of the tech claims lies in the apparent aim to have the US government threaten Australia with tariffs if the tech rules aren’t dropped, without going as far as to impose these tariffs because tariffs would likely hurt their own business interests.

It should be said that our government has itself strategised, cajoled and bargained with the tech industry before. As a tech sector rep observed to me and Monica this week, our government played hardball back in 2021, threatening Google and Meta with designation under the News Media Bargaining Code if the deals with news publishers weren’t lucrative enough. But in all of this, there was a genuine concern for the sustainability of public interest journalism. In contrast, the latest trade war opportunism comes after some companies have already taken steps to dismantle initiatives like fact checking, once seen as necessary to maintain public confidence, even in the US.  

As one tech firm chases another in the march to ‘liberation day’, Ferguson’s question might now be put to the bros: is it liberating to decide that commitments to the community no longer matter?