From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Thursday, June sixth Anthony Albanezi and Peter Dutton have put on a rare show of unity. They've slammed the Greens in Parliament, saying they're fueling tension and division over conflict in the Middle East. The PM says pro Palestinian protesters targeting electorate offices like his in Sydney's Marrickville are undermining their cause and preventing others from participating in democracy.
Economic growth is all but ground to a halt, slumping to its slowest pace in three decades outside the COVID pandemic. Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Wednesday high interest rates are to blame for the slowdown and he doesn't expect things to improve before the end of the year. Those stories alive right now at The Australian dot Com. The boss of News Corp Australia, Michael Miller, wants the federal government to pass so called social license laws that would expose
social media executives to criminal penalties if they breach Australian law. Miller, whose company publishes Mastheads, from the Herald Sun to Vogue Australia, The Australian and the front says if the tech giants don't comply, they should be expelled from the Australian market. That's today's story.
My name is Francis Hogan.
I used to work at Facebook.
In October twenty twenty one, the worst nightmare of executives at the world's most powerful social media platform, Meta came true. A whistleblower, Francis Hogan went public in the most dramatic possible way. This is Hagen addressing the United States Senate.
I joined Facebook because I think Facebook has the potential to bring out the best inness. But I'm here today because I believe Facebook's products home children, stoke division and weaken our democracy. The company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram saver, but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.
METS founder Mark Zuckerberg said Hagen's claim it puts profit before people was untrue. On Wednesday, at the National Press Club in Canberra, News Corp Australasia boss Michael Miller took up the fight.
These tech giants, especially the social media networks such as Meta, TikTok and x operate outside our legal system.
It's time for them to play by our rules.
They have deep pockets, they are highly litigious, but that is no reason why they should not be subject to Australian law, and we should seek to enforce Australian law. The words social license describe the permission companies have to operate within a society. The tech monopolies should also be made to pay a license. This social license would be a package of laws and requirements the tech monopolies would need to meet if they want access to Australian consumers.
Miller recommended a suite of new legislation designed to keep the tech platforms accountable for the content and ideas they amplify. They include making it easier for users to contact the platforms directly, breaking up the digital advertising monopoly, honoring the news media Bargaining Code, and importantly.
Penalties that incorporate criminal sanctions for companies and their executives that agree to the license that then break the rules, and the power to ultimately block access to our country and our people if they refuse to play by our rules.
Miller said part of the problem is that fines don't.
Work because on social media, bad behavior is good for business.
The social media giants.
They profit from evil videos, They profit from bullying, They profit from online con artists.
They profit from glamorizing eating disorders.
In the words of a British father who lost their child to suicide, they monetize misery in metas case, according to a recent report in the UK's Sunday Times magazine, that profit is a staggering one hundred and thirty six million US dollars every single day.
The a Triple C has ruled that.
For media companies, Meta is an unab avoidable trading partner.
That means the media companies have no choice but to use the social media platforms to get their journalism to Australians. That's because all our habits have changed so much. More and more we live in our social feeds now, instead of tuning into the six pm news or swinging past the news agency to pick up the paper. In order to find out what's going on, news organizations have to post their stories on TikTok or Facebook if they've got any chance of having them noticed by the audience.
And in twenty twenty one, Parliament determined that Meta should pay for the news it users.
That's the world first news media Bargaining code that was passed by the Australian Parliament after the a Triable C found the big tech platforms were the news media industry's unavoidable trading partners. Essentially be a trible C, which is the Competition watchdog said platforms are profiting from news news content and should pay for it. Facing the thread of the code, both Google and Facebook did deals with Australian publishers.
Now as its three year deals expire, Meta is refusing to renew them, saying neither it nor its users are actually interested in news now. Their decision now triggers the possibility of them being designated under the bargaining code and told that despite what it says, it is still using
news content and should return to the negotiating table. In Canada, faced with the same demand that it pays for news, METAUP turned news off on Facebook, saying you can't force us to pay for something we no longer carry.
We had a deal, they walked away.
I believe they had an obligation to renew the agreements and honor our laws. It is intriguing that Meta has no problem turning off the news, but has a big problem turning off teenage fight clubs, the bullying of young women, or scam advertising. We cannot let ourselves be bullied. Meta must be designated under the Media Bargaining Code and challenged to negotiate in good faith.
But the problem is who can make them pay.
Met has been a frequent target of regulators in the last two years. As of last week, there are at least thirty enforcement actions against Meta around the globe.
But when does this money get paid?
Their usual pattern is to fight any ruling against them through appeals.
In the courts.
For years, the tech monopolies love to use the law to protect their right to be above the law. When the threat of regulation comes in their direction, the tech monopoly has a playbook. They declare that they want to be regulated, that no solution is ever workable for them. Then they insist that regulation should be harmonized across jurisdictions, and Meta knows that such a global agreement is never going to happen.
Miller said the social license he's proposing would put social media executives under exactly the same kinds of rules that apply to every other company.
A company may want to come to Australia to mine the mineral of the moment copper. We rightly regard copper as Australian property and if you want to extract it, here are just a few of the things that Australia requires. You will pay a royalty on the copper to access the copper. You will fairly negotiate with the landowners. You will hire Australians and meet all our industrial relations standards, safety.
Requirements and awards.
You will meet all environmental requirements, and you will pay to fix any damage you cause or face preak. In my view, the tech monopolies are also mining companies, but they don't mind our minerals. They mind our lives.
Coming up, How AI fits into this complicated picture. Like the media landscape, the Australian is always evolving. Our subscribers get breaking news alerts and commentary direct to their phones, as well as access to newsletters and special events. Check us out at Vaustralian dot com dot au and we'll be back after this break. In May, News Corps Global boss Robert Thompson announced a landmark agreement with OpenAI, a tech company that owns the generative artificial intelligence platform chat GPT.
If AI falls under the broad umbrella of machine learning. That means sophisticated algorithms crawl the Internet and synthesize all the information they can find on a given topic. Then they spit it back out in whatever format. We ask for images, videos, essays and more. In licensing the expert FactCheck journalism produced by news Corps many mast heads around the globe. The hope is that the information served up to users of chat, GPT and others is of the
highest quality and accuracy. News Corp Australia CEO Michael Miller was asked about the agreement at the Press Club on Wednesday.
Thank you for your spiritual Olivia Island from the Sidney Morning Herald the age, miss Miller. A year ago, News Corp was giving warnings about the use of artificial intelligence and its effects on the media, and now you're doing deals. What exactly has changed.
Jim DVAI has not been in the vernacular for long. I think changed over the past year is that a lot of those AI companies have learned from the tech platforms to engage with media earlier. And that's what I think all media companies are seeing that they are wanting to have conversations. They see media as being important partners and that media companies should be open to having those conversations.
There's no doubt that those AI companies need media companies and that if the partnership is right, then I don't think media companies should be closed minded to working with AI companies either.
So you're not going to hear episodes of the Front scripted by chat GPT ever, and this is where the confusion comes from. News Corp, like other publishers, is exploring the use of AI to make journalism more efficient, faster and more accurate. But it's not anywhere near our news or investigative content. It's information like weather, traffic conditions, fuel prices, or based on information that's publicly available and independently verified.
I asked the boss of our Data journalism division about this and he said generative AI is not writing stories. It can't be trusted for that. Nothing is published without being carefully checked by an editor, a human.
Thank you Dana Daniel from The Camera Times. Again, you've said that it won't be a big deal if MATA leaves Australia and that we can just come up with other social media platforms fill in that space. But Australia is not really a tech superpower. Do you see this as something that government should fund and subsidize an alternative social media industry in Australia.
First of all meta leaving the country. The E Safety Commissioner said that there were thirty two million reports of child exploitation online last year. Eighty five percent of those came from the four meta platforms Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and threads. They are by far the worst actor thirty two million.
Good riddance.
If you don't want to not just sign up to our values, but sign up to our laws, why do we want them.
Here so we don't need subsidies, then I'm.
A head ask for subsidies.
I'm asking for the government to move quickly with a social license that enshrines our way of life, that protects austrained businesses, not just protect a strained business, put just a level playing field. We're not even asking for protection, We're looking for a level playing field. Have them play by our laws and if not, put penalties in place.
That's what other businesses have to sign up to. That's what they should sign up to.
Thanks for joining us on the front we'll be back right here tomorrow. In the meantime, join our subscribers at the Australian dot com