It used to be a joke, but it’s not so much fun anymore. Google threatens to block searches in Australia if the country implements a binding profit-sharing agreement that would force tech giants like Google and Facebook to pay media companies for their content. But Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is not sweating it out.
Morrison suggested Monday at National Press Club of Australia that Australians can only use Microsoft’s Bing search engine if Google wants to leave the country.
“Are you confident that alternative search engines will be able to fill a massive gap left by Google and that Australians won’t get any worse?” asked Rosie Lewis, a journalist for the Australian newspaper.
“I can tell you that Microsoft has a lot of confidence,” Morrison replied with a confident laugh.
“When I talked to Satya the other day, there was a bit of that,” Morrison said as he rubbed his hands and referred to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
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After fading polite laughter, Morrison spoke again of points he had made before, insisting that Australians adopt Australian law and that the government will not respond kindly to any Google threats.
“Look, these are big technology companies. And what’s important to Australia is that we set the rules that are important to our people, ”Morrison said. of democracies “.
The proposed benefit-sharing program has been dubbed the Media Bargaining Code, and Google users in Australia are currently inundated with announcements about how the proposed benefit program would harm the Internet. every time they visit Google.
Morrison noted in today’s event that when he met with leaders of other nations at G20 meetings over the years, he often spoke not only about how to make international corporations respond through taxes, but of how to get everyone on the same page to deal with antitrust issues and competition policies.
“I would like to see more alignment between the world’s economies on this kind of thing,” Morrison said, noting perhaps that there has been little traction in the U.S. to break any of the big tech companies that are sitting on the grass.
But then Morrison hinted at the implications of the Media Negotiation Code that have not occupied the center. One potential consequence, as Morrison suggested, was that online speech could be regulated in new ways to ensure a more civil discussion.
“We just want the rules of the digital world to be the same as they exist in the real world … in the physical world,” Morrison said. “And that means you can’t go on abusing people and continue like people do. You wouldn’t behave like that in a room like this. Or I think I wouldn’t.”
Needless to say, this item it had not really been debated in the mainstream Australian media as a potential consequence of the application of the Code. But it makes sense for Morrison to be sensitive to things that are said online. Morrison has become a meme more than once, aand if people online talked about the time they presumably shit pants at McDonald’s, you would probably also want a crackdown on trolls.