Call for tougher rules for big tech despite ‘shift’

ACCC chief Rod Sims says the watchdog will keep pushing for tougher regulation of tech giants such as Facebook and Google.

Australian Competition & Consumer Commission chief Rod Sims. Picture: Kym Smith

Australian Competition & Consumer Commission chief Rod Sims says the watchdog will keep pushing for tougher regulation of tech giants such as Facebook and Google, despite signs the behemoths are starting to value the work of media organisations.

Speaking at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia lunch in Perth on Wednesday, Mr Sims said the ACCC and other regulators around the world would continue advocating for more stringent privacy laws as well as regulations that would shift more bargaining power back towards traditional media outlets.

The ACCC in July released a series of recommendations aimed at addressing the market power of the major digital platforms, including an enforceable bargaining code to ensure that media businesses were treated fairly and reasonably.

Mr Sims said a strong media industry was a fundamental part of democracy, and said a growing reliance on the likes of Google and Facebook to fill the void was risky given the “propensity for disinformation and misinformation” on the platforms.

“The internet has improved the diversity of news but they are struggling and I think we lose a lot as a society if we don’t have a vibrant newspaper industry,” he said.

Pointing to episodes such as the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, through to the prevalence of fraudulent advertising posted through the major digital platforms, Mr Sims said he did not accept the argument from the internet giants that they were simply “humble platform providers”.

“I personally think that’s completely untenable,” he said.

“They created the platform, they curate it, they guide the algorithms, they make a lot of money out of it. They’ve got to take more responsibility.”

Mr Sims’s comments came just days after Robert Thomson — the chief executive of News Corp, publisher of The Australian — wrote in the company’s annual report that there had been a “fundamental shift” for the better in the way journalism was valued by big digital platforms.

Mr Thomson said the tenor of the talks between News Corp and the likes of tech giants Google and Facebook was now “vastly different” to a year ago.

“There is clearly a fundamental shift under way in the content landscape, and one consequence, along with intensifying regulatory scrutiny of big digital, is a gradual transference of value to content creators,” Mr Thomson said.