Sydney:
Facebook Inc CEO Mark Zuckerberg named Australian lawmakers final week to talk about guidelines that would make net giants spend news outlets for content but failed to persuade them to adjust policy, the country’s Treasurer mentioned on Sunday.
Zuckerberg “reached out to talk about the code and the impact on Facebook” and a constructive discussion followed final week among the social media billionaire, Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and communications minister Paul Fletcher.
“No, Mark Zuckerberg didn’t convince me to back down if that’s what you’re asking,” Frydenberg told the Australian Broadcasting Corp, without the need of providing additional particulars of the meeting.
A Facebook spokeswoman in Australia mentioned the company’s executives often meet with government stakeholders on a variety of subjects.
“We’re actively engaging with the Australian government with the goal of landing on a workable framework to support Australia’s news ecosystem,” she mentioned.
Australia intends to introduce a law that would force Facebook, the world’s biggest social media platform, and net search giant Google Inc to negotiate payments to media providers whose content drives visitors to their internet websites. If the parties can not agree on payments, a government-appointed arbitrator will set the costs for them.
Facebook and Google oppose the “News Media Bargaining Code” and have mounted public campaigns against it. Google has threatened to withdraw its search engine from Australia though Facebook has warned it would cease Australians sharing news content on its internet site if the laws go ahead.
At a Senate inquiry into the planned law this month, regional heads of each providers outlined their opposition to the plans, which would be amongst the toughest in the globe in dealing with the monetary effect of worldwide net providers on domestic media, which have been hit by shrinking marketing income.
“We’re told that if we go ahead with this, we’re going to break the internet,” Frydenberg mentioned on the ABC.
“What I do know is that media businesses should be paid for content.”
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