SYDNEY -- Google threatened Friday to make its search engine unavailable in Australia if the government approved legislation that would force tech companies to pay for journalism posted on their platforms.
Representatives of Facebook, who appeared with Google representatives at an Australian Senate hearing, reaffirmed a threat of its own, vowing to block users in Australia from posting or providing links to news if the bill passed.
In both cases, the dire warnings -- which one senator called blackmail -- revealed the apparent willingness of Facebook and Google to hide or erase reliable sources of information for millions of people at a time when social media platforms are under fire for helping misinformation spread worldwide.
The companies argue that they already help the media industry by sending it traffic and that the bill would open them up to "unmanageable levels of financial and operational risk." The response by Google, which controls 95% of all queries in Australia in addition to owning YouTube, has grown particularly aggressive: The company recently buried major Australian news sites in search results in what it called an "experiment."
But the precedent of paying for journalism does not, in itself, seem to be the issue.
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A few hours before Google threatened to take away its search engine in Australia, the company agreed to pay news publications in France under an agreement that is likely to lead to more deals across Europe.
The battle in Australia centers on power: who gets to decide the payments, what prompts a charge for the tech companies and when do they have to reveal changes in their algorithms.
Australia's assertive challenge to the online giants has placed it in the vanguard of a movement to bolster a traditional news media ecosystem against the threat of America's trillion-dollar tech companies siphoning advertising revenue.
For Google and Facebook, their intense push-back has become a focal point of their global efforts to limit regulation, as governments around the world look to rein them in.
Under Australia's proposed legislation, if media companies and platforms like Google cannot agree on a price for news content, an independent arbitration body will resolve the dispute. That could amount to a first in the world.
The agreement in France lets Google negotiate with publishers using criteria the company has established, such as the contribution to general discussion, publication volume and audience size. Disputes most likely would go to court, where they could be bogged down for years, delaying payment.
Australia's bill would streamline the process and strengthen the weaker side -- the media.
As Rod Sims, chairman of Australia's consumer protection regulator, explained: "The aim of the code [proposed law] is to address the uneven bargaining position between Australian news media businesses and the big digital platforms who have clear market power."
The tech companies say it would create an incentive for media companies to jack up prices, sending cases to an arbiter who will determine final payment. They point to a government report estimating that 75% of the negotiations could end up in arbitration.
Critics argue that Google and Facebook are simply trying to maintain their position as the ones who get to determine what news is worth.
LINKS VS. PREVIEWS
The fight centers in part on a debate over the nature of search results and on the question of whether tech companies should pay for every article that Australians see on their platforms.
In a submission to Australia's Senate inquiry about the proposal, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, wrote that "the code risks breaching a fundamental principle of the web by requiring payment for linking between certain content online."
"The ability to link freely," he added, "meaning without limitations regarding the content of the linked site and without monetary fees, is fundamental to how the web operates."
Melanie Silva, managing director of Google Australia and New Zealand, made the same argument Friday in the Senate and in a video posted to Twitter, where she asked people to imagine recommending a few cafes to a friend -- and then getting a bill from the cafes for providing that information.
"When you put a price on linking to certain information, you break the way search engines work," she said. "And you no longer have a free and open web."
ALGORITHMS
One potentially groundbreaking element of the proposed legislation involves the secret sauce of Facebook, Google and subsidiaries like YouTube: the algorithms that determine what people see when they search or scroll through the platforms.
Early drafts of the bill would have required that tech companies give their news media partners 28 days' notice before making any changes that would affect how users interact with their content.
Google and Facebook said that would be impossible because their algorithms are always changing in ways that can be difficult to measure for a subset like news, so in the latest draft, lawmakers limited the scope.
If the bill passes in one form or another, which seems likely, the digital platforms will have to give the media 14 days' notice of deliberate algorithm changes that significantly affect their businesses. Even that, some critics argue, is not enough for the technology companies.