Australia passes law to charge tech companies levies unless they reach deals with news publishers

Meta, Google, TikTok and LinkedIn will have to pay millions to support local news outlets under Australia's new rules.

Australia will force Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn and others to pay levies if they don't reach deals with local news publishers. Both houses of the country's parliament passed a law that will force them to pay 2.75 percent of local revenues if they fail to make deals with at least eight outlets by the end of their annual reporting periods. The agreements (which have to support the publishers' production of news) will offset what the companies would have to pay through the levies.

The levy applies to companies that generate over ​AU $250million ($178 million) in local ad revenue and operate a "significant" social media service or search engine in the country. As Reuters notes, the money that the country brings in from the levies will go to publishers, as the tech companies benefit from their work through engagement and ad revenue. The amount that a publisher receives from the levies will depend on the number of journalists (including freelancers) it employs.

The new law replaces rules from 2021 . Those older requirements for tech companies to pay for news were "no longer working effectively," according to the Australian government. After those measures came into force five years ago, Meta temporarily blocked publishers and users from sharing news articles. It later reached deals with local news outlets, but those expired two years ago . Meta pulled a similar move in Canada three years ago when it blocked Facebook and Instagram users from sharing links to news articles.