Australia plans to tax digital platforms that don’t pay for news stories

The Australian government said it will tax major digital platforms and search engines unless they agree to share revenue with Australian news media, The Associated Press reports

According to Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, the tax will apply from January 1st to technology companies that generate more than $250m Australian Dollars ($160m) a year in revenue in Australia.

These include Meta, Google’s owner Alphabet and ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok.

“The real objective ... is not to raise revenue. The real objective is to incentivise agreement-making between platforms and news media businesses in Australia,” Mr. Jones told reporters.

The tax will be offset by funds paid to Australian media organisations. The amount is not specified.