"New Zealand is far, far too small to bring the likes of Netflix, Google and Facebook to heel. California for example, is said to be the fifth largest economy in the world. Yet Meta and Google are threatening to cut off news items (and searches) about California if the state proceeds with... legislation [that] would require the social media giants to pay a “journalism useage fee” for linking to news sites based in California."
This is why a tax on digital advertising makes way more sense than any futile attempts to allow selected websites to charge certain other huge websites for links. Better Public Media pointed this out in their submission on the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill.
But this is just first aid. As #CoryDoctorow has pointed out, what the public really need from our legislators is robust regulation of the digital ad industry, with a focus on protecting privacy and ensuring fair competition.
"Meta also records that 234 such requests [for personal data] were made to it by the New Zealand government during the same period. That sort of thing explains why the real answer is not a selective ban imposed solely on Tiktok, but a comprehensive law to protect data privacy for all, from all, by all."
As governments outsource more and more of their functions to corporations, the artificial lines people try to draw when debating issues like freedom of expression or privacy start to look a bit ridiculous.
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