A number of democracies around the world have advanced legislation that would require massive multinational tech platforms to compensate news publishers for profiting from our journalism in the digital advertising market.
In Australia, Canada, the United States and California, Google and Meta have responded to these proposed regulations by threatening to ban journalism from their services if lawmakers don’t agree to major concessions on digital advertising legislation.
Workers at Meta blew the whistle on one such temporary blockage of publishers, civic institutions and emergency services in Australia in 2021 as a deliberate tactic by Meta executives to successfully force the Australian government back to the bargaining table.
A wide number of media advocacy and civil society organizations hold diverging opinions on how best to regulate major tech platforms. But the platforms’ reactions to debates over platform-publisher legislation have exposed the unique threat that massive multinational tech companies are capable of posing to independent journalism and democratic sovereignty in the 21st century.
Meta and Google dominate the digital advertising market and also control how and when audiences around the world see our journalism on major services such as Facebook, Instagram and Google Search.
These companies and their executives not only donate generously to politicians’ election campaigns, but also give extensive grants to digital publishers who rely on philanthropic support for the very fact that public-interest journalism is so challenging to sustain on Meta and Google’s commercial services.
The platforms’ ability to economically capture publishers, structure democratic debate and punish uncooperative regulators – all for the pursuit of profit – calls for a coordinated response by the world’s democracies and their journalists.
Legislation such as Australia’s News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, Canada’s Bill C-18, the United States’ Journalism Competition and Preservation Act and the California Journalism Preservation Act ask that ad-driven tech platforms compensate news publishers for profiting from our journalism.
Platform-publisher legislation can be highly complicated and vary in the specifics, and not all such bills may warrant support. Regulatory interventions undertaken in the name of journalism must serve the public interest and should be justified with guarantees that the policies will support newsrooms before boardrooms, with transparency measures that help keep news publishers accountable.
Journalists use digital tools and platforms every day and aren’t asking to turn back the clock on technological progress – we demand a future that’s sustainable. Political decisions by Meta and Google executives may not reflect the will of their workers, many of whom seek to build digital infrastructure that benefits the public good and who lack union representation. Good faith critics should be engaged seriously and respectfully.
But threats of news blackouts by Meta and Google should be treated as what they are: capital strikes by highly profitable multinational corporations seeking to discipline uncooperative democracies into compliance.
Therefore, delegates to The NewsGuild-CWA Sector Conference declare:
Resolved: The NewsGuild-CWA stands for journalistic independence, popular sovereignty, and the future of the internet as a powerful tool for knowledge, community, and freedom.
Resolved: We will only support platform-publisher legislation that substantially ensures newsrooms spend news funds on newsroom employment, such as the California Journalism Preservation Act’s requirements that 70% of platform fees be spent on payroll, with annual transparency reports helping keep publishers accountable.
Resolved: The NewsGuild-CWA will promote efforts for international journalism unions and their governments to collaborate on policy approaches where necessary to serve as a check on platforms’ transnational corporate power.
Resolved: The NewsGuild-CWA supports efforts by our siblings at the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA and other unions to give tech workers a voice in their own work and the means to build a more democratic digital future.