It used to be a joke, but it’s not that funny anymore. Google is threatening to block searches in Australia if the country implements a mandatory profit-sharing agreement that would force technology giants such as Google and Facebook to pay media companies for their content. But Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison doesn’t sweat it.
Morrison suggested on Monday at the National Press Club of Australia that Australians can just use Microsoft’s search engine Bing if Google really wants to leave the country.
“Are you sure that alternative search engines will be able to fill a huge void left by Google and that Australians will not be worse off?” asked Rosie Lewis, a reporter for the Australian newspaper.
“I can tell you Microsoft is pretty confident,” Morrison replied with a confident smile.
“When I spoke to Satya the other day, there was a little bit of that,” said Morrison, rubbing his hands and referring to Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO.
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After the polite chuckle faded, Morrison returned to his previous comments, insisting that Australians draft Australian law and that the government will not respond kindly to threats from Google.
‘Look, these are big technology companies. And what’s important for Australia is that we create the rules that matter to our people, ”said Morrison. “And with a news environment in this country that is sustainable and commercially supported, this is vital to the functioning of democracies.”
The proposed profit-sharing program is called the Media Bargaining Code, and Google users in Australia are currently inundated with advertisements about how the proposed program would harm the Internet. every time they visit Google.
Morrison noted at today’s event that as he met the leaders of other countries at G20 meetings over the years, he often spoke not only about how international companies can be held accountable through taxation, but also about how everyone can be aligned when it comes to antitrust and competition policy.
“I would like to see the world’s economies become more aligned on these kinds of things,” said Morrison, perhaps nodding to the fact that there has been little traction in the US to become one of the big tech companies. to take apart. .
But then Morrison hinted at the implications of the Media Bargaining Code that were not central. One possible consequence, as Morrison suggested, was that online speech could be regulated in new ways to ensure a more bourgeois discussion.
“We just want the rules in the digital world to be the same as in the real world … in the physical world,” Morrison said. “And that means you can’t mistreat people and carry on like people do. You wouldn’t act like that in a room like this. Or I don’t think you would.“
Needless to say, this element was not really discussed as potentially in the mainstream Australian media due to compliance with the code. But it makes sense that Morrison is sensitive to the things being said online. Morrison has become a meme more than once, oneand when people online were talking about the time you supposedly had shit in your pants at McDonald’s, you would probably want a crackdown on trolls too.