Google ‘using CCP’s bullying playbook’, says Rex Patrick

Independent senator Rex Patrick says Google’s media code response was akin to bullying tactics routinely used by the CCP.

Independent senator Rex Patrick. Picture: AAP

Independent senator Rex Patrick has compared Google to the Chinese Communist Party, saying the tech giant’s “disingenuous” response to the federal government’s proposed media code was akin to bullying tactics routinely used by the CCP.

Ahead of a Senate committee hearing in Canberra on Friday — at which Senator Patrick and five other cross-party upper house colleagues will examine the merits of the legislation — the South Australian MP said Google’s threat to exit the Australian market if the media code becomes law was poorly received by both sides of parliament.

“Google’s behaviour is straight out of the Chinese Communist Party’s playbook, and it’s not appreciated,” Senator Patrick told The Australian.

While he was going into Friday’s hearing “with an open mind”, he said representatives of Google and Facebook would be directly confronted over their companies’ public statements.

“If they are not already aware of the (committee’s) sentiments about the threats … they will be on Friday.”

Senator Patrick said he most notably took issue with Google’s pledge to completely exit the Australian market if the legislation, which would see the tech giants pay news publishers in return for using their content, is passed. “It’s disingenuous, that at a time when right around the world different propositions are being advocated to sustain public interest journalism, that Google would ponder moving out of an entire market.”

It’s understood other members of the Senate committee have taken a dim view of Facebook’s threat to ban the sharing of Australian news on its platform.

Senator Patrick queried the timing of Google’s recent move to bury links to traditional news outlets in some of its search results, which the company has described as an “experiment”.

“It’s hard to believe it’s coincidental,” he said of the decision to conduct the trial just weeks before the Senate will vote on the legislation.

Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, also a member of the Senate committee at Friday’s hearing, said Google’s so-called experiment actually demonstrated that the company is a publisher — a label the tech giant resists. “In doing this, Google has demonstrated it is a publisher. They are editing content … editing what people see, and that makes them a publishing outfit, even if they don’t fit the traditional definition.”

Senator Bragg described the big tech companies as “the oil companies of the 21st century”, saying the “evidence is piling up” that regulation is essential to ­sustain a viable Australian media industry.

“Their power and market reach is such that there needs to be intervention to redress the imbalance,” he said.

“No one wants Australia to become a technology backwater, but it’s clear that strong regulation is needed.”

The deadline for submissions to the Senate committee was Monday night, but as of 8pm neither Google nor Facebook had lodged a formal document.