The EC believes "very harmful" the information blockade of Facebook in Australia
Brussels (EFE) .- The Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, considered this Monday "very damaging" the temporary blackout of news content carried out by Facebook in Australia and considered that it is necessary to "support" the Government of that country in its It "fights" to force technology companies to pay the media for the content they publish on their platforms.
European publishers and Microsoft call for Australian-style protection in Europe
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"It really seems very harmful to me that a platform takes these measures to protest against the law of a country," Breton said in an appearance by videoconference in the Internal Market committee of the European Parliament, in which he was in favor of "supporting Australia in this fight. "
Facebook announced last Thursday its decision to prohibit publishers and other users in Australia from sharing news produced by the media on its platform in response to a bill that the previous day had been approved by the Lower House of the Australian bicameral Parliament. .
Despite the retaliation, the Australian Government announced last Friday that it will continue with its roadmap to pass the bill.
"There are laws and the platforms have to adapt" and "not the other way around," said the European Commissioner.
For Breton, the price of media news must be "obviously remunerated at its fair value, especially by the large platforms."
In this sense, he stressed that the problem of copyright on news has already been resolved in Europe with a directive on the matter that should come into force next June.
Unlike the pioneering Australian bill in the world - which obliges Google and Facebook to resort to a mediator to agree a price with press publishers if they have not reached an agreement before -, European copyright law offers media the right to demand payment for a license.
In addition to the European copyright law, the Community Executive last December presented a broad legislative proposal to limit the abuses of power by large digital platforms, such as Facebook and Google.
This is the digital services directive that aims to force the internet giants to remove illegal content from their web pages and fine them up to 6% of their global turnover if they do not do so.
Parallel to this push by the Commission towards laws to limit the power of big tech, there are MEPs who are considering the possibility of following in Australia's footsteps and forcing companies like Google and Facebook to pay the media for the links to the news that appear on their web pages.
