Journalism and the internet.

Byline: Usama Khilji

IT is undeniable that the internet and social media have fundamentally changed the media landscape in the world in more ways than one. And as governments get eager to regulate the internet, media groups are lobbying for laws that can help them get a share of the profits internet companies make through adverts on the traffic that they generate, of which news forms an integral part.

This is what happened in Australia recently, as governments in Canada, US and the EU mull over similar proposals. The logic is that news sites are providing a large part of content that is driving traffic on the internet where people share news and click on it. This in turn provides added advertisement revenue to internet companies that are able to profit off the ads they target users with.

News companies are said to have been making lesser profit, resultantly laying off journalists and shrinking their presence in several locations, which inadvertently means people have less information available to them, and the quality of it has also been impacted. Getting more revenue from internet companies will help revive that.

Internet companies on the other hand are saying that they did not have a role in the loss of revenue of media groups, and have used arm-twisting techniques with the Australian government that are otherwise typical of oppressive governments, threatening pull out. Facebook blanked out not only all news pages, but also several non-profit pages including many that were sharing critical information related to the pandemic.

Big tech and big news corporations have negotiated an agreement of profit-sharing but where does this leave citizens?

Google threatened to leave the Australian market completely, but quickly moved to negotiate with the government once its fierce competitor Microsoft stepped in and not only supported the Australian proposal but also offered its search engine Bing for the Australian market, with commitments to share revenue with news agencies based on referrals from the search engine. Google's settlement with the government now includes an agreement with Newscorp - the group owned by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch - to have all their channels included in Google news showcase, a new app with curated news.

Facebook has also entered into agreements with news groups, and the two giants seem to have convinced the Australian government not to force them to have agreements with news groups by virtue of existing deals they...

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