Australia Passes Bargaining Code

On February 25, both houses of the Australian Parliament passed the News Media Bargaining Code. It passed with several last-minute amendments that include more negotiation time before binding arbitration and government discretion to exempt the platforms from arbitration after considering the power imbalance against a platform’s “significant contribution to the sustainability of the Australian news industry.” The Code passed despite multiple attempts by both Google and Facebook to undermine and spread misinformation about it. The Code is the first of its kind, and many other countries are considering using it as a guide for how to compensate news publishers and preserve quality journalism that is essential to democracy. Read more here.