It used to be a joke, but it’s not that funny anymore. Google is threatening to block searches in Australia if the country implements a mandatory profit-sharing agreement that would force tech giants like Google and Facebook to pay media companies for their content. But Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is not concerned.
Morrison suggested Monday at National Press Club of Australia that Australians can use Microsoft’s search engine Bing if Google really wants to leave the country.
“Are you confident that alternative search engines will be able to fill a huge void left by Google and Australians will not be worse off?” asked Rosie Lewis, a reporter for the Australian newspaper.
“I can say that Microsoft is very confident,” Morrison replied with a confident laugh.
“When I spoke to Satya the other day, there was a little bit of that,” said Morrison as he rubbed his hands and referred to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
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After the polite laughter stopped, Morrison returned to the discussion points he had made earlier, insisting that Australians make Australian law and that the government will not respond kindly to any Google threats.
“Look, these are big tech companies. And what is important for Australia is that we define the rules that are important to our people, ”said Morrison. “And having a news environment in this country that is sustainable and with commercial support, this is vital for the functioning of democracies”.
The proposed profit sharing program has been dubbed the Media Trading Code and Google users in Australia are being inundated with advertisements about how the proposed program would harm the Internet whenever they visit Google.
Morrison noted at today’s event that when he met with leaders of other nations at G20 meetings over the years, he often spoke not only about keeping international companies accountable through taxes, but about putting everyone in the same page when it comes to antitrust and competition policy issues.
“I would like to see more alignment between world economies in this sort of thing,” said Morrison, perhaps agreeing with the fact that there was little force in the US to break up any of the big tech companies that are sitting at home.
But then Morrison hinted at the implications of the Media Trading Code that did not take center stage. A potential consequence, as Morrison suggested, was that online speech could be regulated in new ways to ensure more civilized discussion.
“We just want the rules of the digital world to be the same as those that exist in the real world … in the physical world,” said Morrison. “And that means that you can’t abuse people and act like they do. You wouldn’t behave like that in a room like this. Or I don’t think you would.“
Needless to say, this element was not really discussed in the mainstream Australian media as a potential consequence of the application of the Code. But it makes sense for Morrison to be sensitive about the things that are said online. Morrison has become a meme more than once, awhat if people online were talking about the moment when you’re supposed to shit in his pants at McDonald’s, you would probably like a crackdown on trolls too.