Ben Whitelaw: 0:00

Mike, this might be the most middle-aged British thing I've ever said. And that's, that's a fairly high bar, right? Because I, I do really mark myself out, in loads of ways across those two kind of categories, but. and I don't want you to kind of like, you know, be embarrassed on behalf of me. But I have started to do some birdwatching

Mike Masnick: 0:19

Oh yes.

Ben Whitelaw: 0:21

and I've got, an app for it, which is called Merlin Bird id, which kind of detects the sounds of birds. And you can upload pictures of birds you see, and it registers them and confirms that they are. The species that they are. and on the kinda marketing for this app, it, has the prompt who's singing. So I thought we'd start today, um, with a, self humiliation. And also, uh, the question of who's singing, who's been singing this last week?

Mike Masnick: 0:49

Well that, that is a, an excellent prompt. And I will note that I have also recently started using the, Merlin Bird app, which is a. A, proud production of my alma mater, Cornell University. So I'm, I am contractually obliged to, to use the app. It is actually very cool. it is sort of like a real life Pokemon app where you go out and find birds and it is, it's fun. It's one of these things that's like actually fun technology, which is nice and, and resonant. Discuss in a moment. Uh, but in terms of who is singing this week, it sure seems like a bunch of Australian politicians are singing about how wonderful it is that they're banning children from various internet services that they like, and they're, they're awfully, awfully happy about it, which is just sort of a slightly odd feeling. But, uh, who's singing in your neck of the woods?

Ben Whitelaw: 1:44

Yeah. I mean, the person that comes to mind is, is Elon Musk, but he's very much not singing. He's, he's,

Mike Masnick: 1:51

He's singing some sort of tune.

Ben Whitelaw: 1:53

He is, he's singing some tune, but he's, I would say he's squawking, he's very upset about what's happened this past week. So, um, he's not somebody I want to listen to a lot more of, but we're gonna talk about him anyway, as ever. Hello and welcome to Control Alt Speech, your weekly roundup of the major stories about online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation. It's December the 11th, 2025, and this week's episode is brought to you by CCIA, an international not-for-profit trade association, representing a broad cross section of communications and technology firms that promote open markets, open systems, and open networks. My name is Ben White Law. I'm the founder and editor of Everything in Moderation, and I'm back with a newly minted. And I and I, and I mean, you know, literally minted, but also, profiting, uh, over the last week, which we'll talk about. Mike Masnick. How are you, Mike?

Mike Masnick: 2:55

I'm good. I'm, happy to be back. I had fun last week at, the Wired conference where I was, but, uh, missed being here. I listened to the podcast that you and Avi did, which I thought was very. Great. Fascinating. She's always a fascinating person to talk to, so I was

Ben Whitelaw: 3:11

She is.

Mike Masnick: 3:12

en enjoyed that. But, yeah. Also, last week I started learning about how to mint coins.

Ben Whitelaw: 3:17

Yeah, that was my kind of rather mysterious intro. I wanna get into that, but I want to hear what the juice was from the wide event. This was the, big interview event, right? Uh, it's happening in San Francisco. you got up on stage, you, talked about, a kind of big unveiling of a, manifesto, which we're gonna talk about. But what's the juice, what's the gossip from, from the wide event?

Mike Masnick: 3:37

Um, it, it was good. It was actually really interesting. Why are, they've been doing this event for a few years and, I've gone the past three years in a row. and I really like it. I mean, it's super well produced and they have really thoughtful conversations with really interesting. People. And so like this year there was John Chu, who's the Hollywood film director who grew up right near San Francisco. And, and so had all these sort of local stories, which was kind of fascinating. then, he's most recently directed the two Wicked films, the second of which just came out and was talking about that experience. he directed, crazy Rich Asians and, You know, he is just a Hollywood guy, but he had some really interesting perspectives on technology having grown up around here. And, you know, there were a bunch of other conversations as well. I thought that were really good. there were people from Doge. they were on stage right before me. There were a bunch of, the Doge folks who, Wired, has done some really great reporting on Doge. And so they got a bunch of folks. Related to Doge to come on stage and talk about it.

Ben Whitelaw: 4:45

Interesting. How, how are they doing post post Elon?

Mike Masnick: 4:49

well, there, there are some different, levels of that. Uh, I was backstage with some of them, before they went on, was before I went on. So got to chat a little bit with them, which I'm not sure how much publicly I can say.

Ben Whitelaw: 5:02

Now we're talking, this is what I meant, the juice. Let's

Mike Masnick: 5:04

Yeah. I mean, it, it was interesting. I mean, one of the interesting things is that one of them who had been somewhat famously fired from Doge, is now back in government and had just started, like a week before with the IRS and claimed on stage that he's like trying to build, better technology tools for the IRS. He had been fired from Doge for talking to the press. but somehow was able to get back into government, and then go and talk to the press, which I, I,

Ben Whitelaw: 5:36

Well, that, that sounds like a very sensible, uh, chain of events that have happened there. Rehire the guy who was fired and yeah, let him loose at a big meter event.

Mike Masnick: 5:48

I mean it was a little curious'cause I'm not sure if they knew he was gonna go talk at this wired event and get lots of attention,

Ben Whitelaw: 5:57

Leopard leopards in spots,

Mike Masnick: 5:59

Yeah, yeah. There, there was a bit of that. Um, but no, it was a really good event. There's always really good people, so a lot of really good conversations as well. just, fascinating stuff to think about and really sort of big picture thinking.

Ben Whitelaw: 6:11

yeah. Including your new resonant.

Mike Masnick: 6:14

Yes,

Ben Whitelaw: 6:15

Computing manifesto to give it its full title. This is, an exciting new masnick, project Talk us. It's, I know it's been on kind of in stealth mode for quite a long time, and this was the first unveiling. Talk us through what it is and, why you decided to do it.

Mike Masnick: 6:29

Yeah. So this is, I mean, it's a group effort. I, I wanna be clear, this is not a Masnick effort. Uh, there's a, there

Ben Whitelaw: 6:36

solely.

Mike Masnick: 6:37

there were a lot of people involved and it was just sort of a group of people, mostly sort of Silicon Valley based. A lot of people who sort of work in tech, some sort of like investor, some Thinker type people, some designers, we had a lot of different perspectives, just people who were sort of all thinking that, you know, honestly, a, I think, you know, similar to the stuff that we talk about here on this podcast where we're talking about, how can the internet be better and how do we think about within the speech context, which is much of the internet, if not,

Ben Whitelaw: 7:06

Mm.

Mike Masnick: 7:06

know, the vast majority of the internet. Like, how do we make it so that it is more for humanity? Rather than just for some giant companies. and like everybody sort of had this sense that, you know, it feels like the industry is going in the wrong direction and it's sort of like always focused on growth hacking and, know, engagement maxing. And there's this very sort of, you know, what we often sort of refer to as like the tech bro culture, which. It wasn't always like this, and a lot of people, even within the industry, are really kind of uncomfortable with it. But the thing that we all felt in talking about was that we didn't have a language to talk about it other than sort of these, very amorphous general things. So as we sort of were getting together and chatting about this stuff, we said, can we, put together. something that turned into the manifesto that just expresses this idea and maybe lays out some kinds of principles around like, how can we think about this? And where we came down was this concept of resonant computing. and I will say that we went through a. Many, many other options. Uh, and we had a few that we would like, let's try this out for a week. And,

Ben Whitelaw: 8:19

Right.

Mike Masnick: 8:20

about, you know, and go and talk to people and sort of drop things into conversation and see if it felt really uncomfortable or if it felt okay. and once we hit on resonant computing, it just like I mean, it resonated, right? It was like the, um. Yeah, and, what we've seen, you know, we started sort of quietly passing it around before we did the announcement last week, was that. it did it. Like so many people have responded with like, oh my gosh. Like, yes, I've been thinking this, but I didn't have the words, or I didn't quite know how to express it, and I'm so glad that there are other people thinking about it. And so we've gotten, I, I haven't looked lately, but uh, as of yesterday we had almost a thousand signatures, on the document, including some really big names. We have like, Tim O'Reilly and Audrey Tung, who's the digital minister in Taiwan. We had, Larry Lessig there. A bunch of people have been signing on to the document. Kevin Kelly, who's like an early wired guy as well. And just all sorts of excitement about it. Like so many people saying like, yes, yes, this is, this is exactly what we've been sort of feeling. and so we're, really sort of excited by the reaction and, we're now in the process of figuring out like, what more can we do with this? And, I think it's useful to have that language, I think. not to be sort of tooting our own horn, but like I do think that this podcast is a part of that concept of like getting people to think about like, how can we do things in a better, more humanistic way? and really figuring out. Having the language to talk about it is useful, but then beginning to think through what are the principles and what are the ways that we actually build an internet for people as opposed to just like engagement maxing tech bro stuff.

Ben Whitelaw: 10:04

Yeah, I mean the principles, I would definitely, and I've signed up by the way, it should go without saying, um, um, the principles, the five principles that you have in the manifesto are things that I would say that. Control speech kind of seeks to do. I mean, I know that it's fundamentally about building products and companies and software fundamentally, but I, I think we often talk about how media is a kind of part of that ecosystem, right? For those things to succeed for the people, and the companies and the products to kind of rise to the top. You need a media that understands, their benefits and needs them to be framed in the right way. And I think we do a lot of that, as you say. And it's just great to see so many kind of, yeah, smart people come together to create this new language that is, is not a kind of anti language. It's not, it's not like saying we we're opposed to the old way of doing things. It's like, no, no, this is fresh and constructive and positive,

Mike Masnick: 10:58

Yeah. And, and that was deliberate. And, and some people, we've actually had a few people say they wouldn't sign on because we, don't call the existing companies evil and we don't trash the way things were done. and you know, there are people doing that. and that was not the goal of this. It's not just to say, and in fact we talk about it in the manifesto that like. There are incentives that work here and understanding incentives is like everything to me. and that was really important. It's like, yes, there are some bad people in tech, nobody's denying that, but I think we don't get to a better world if we assume that everybody in tech is just automatically evil and has evil intentions. And it's not just sort of, the outgrowth of the incentive structures that are in place, and the way you'd fix that is you have to fix the incentive structures. And to do that, you have to sort of call out where the incentive structures are leading us down the wrong, wrong path. And this is part of that process. And so that's, you know, I think we're, we're gonna have a lot more to say on it as, as we go. this was like, we had no idea, this was a lot of, a lot of it was just like, let's get this out there and see how people respond and people are responding fantastically.

Ben Whitelaw: 12:02

And, and there's a, a really interesting Google Doc that has some of the, kind of these that are being worked on and it's alive with comments. It's alive with people. It's really nice to see. I feel very hopeful,

Mike Masnick: 12:14

Yeah, I mean.

Ben Whitelaw: 12:14

about the manifesto.

Mike Masnick: 12:15

one of the things that we said was like, you know, it's funny to say it in the sense of a manifesto, but like we're trying to be somewhat modest and humble about, about it in that we say like, we don't have all the answers. it's not like there were whatever, a dozen of us that worked on this and like we're not. everybody, right? And so we set up this Google Doc to have these thesis principles and, and have people, you know, let's, let's all talk about this is a conversation. and we're, we're super excited to see how many people have already jumped in and really thoughtful. You know, some of them are critiques and some of them are ideas and it's, it's just been, it's actually been like really kind of energizing to be thinking about this and working on this.

Ben Whitelaw: 12:53

Yeah, really great to see it wasn't the only thing you did last week as, as well as the manifesto. You also launched a new tech dirt coin, which is the references to minting and, being minted. talk us through what that's about, where people can kind of find said coins.

Mike Masnick: 13:09

Yeah, so this is, it's just a fundraiser for Tech Dirt. and a little bit of an experiment for us. Um, you know, we've done different kinds of fundraising in the past. and you know, there's like this whole concept of challenge coins. They're very popular, especially in like the military, and law enforcement. But they, you know, they come in all different ways and we were sort of looking to it. And we thought like, Hey, might be cool to like create a tech dirtt coin for people who donate. and so we set it up. There's links all over Tech Dirtt. If you go to any tech Dirtt story at the bottom of it, there'll be a big picture and a link. But if you, uh, donate a hundred dollars or more, you will once we, we're, running this through the beginning of January, January 5th, and we'll find out how many people want the coins, and then we will mint them in early January and send them out in late January or early February. And so you can have a physical coin. This is not a cryptocurrency. This is.

Ben Whitelaw: 14:02

It's not Ponzi

Mike Masnick: 14:02

No, no. This is, this is a very cool, very nicely designed, designed by our producer Lee, designed the coin. Uh, it, looks fantastic. I can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy.

Ben Whitelaw: 14:17

just to be clear, so this is, you talk about kind of funding tech, tech doesn't have ads. You have, donations, there's various ways to make money, but this, this is a kind of attempt to diversify its revenue, to keep it going, to keep it kind of sustainable without doing some of the kind of shitty stuff that the Resident computing manifesto maybe would suggest,

Mike Masnick: 14:37

This, this is an.

Ben Whitelaw: 14:38

to keep it clean.

Mike Masnick: 14:39

is an attempt to stick with the belief of the resident computing things. I mean, the media space is a very difficult space as you well know. and I feel like a lot of the properties now, a lot of media properties somewhat successfully in, at times have focused on pay walls, overloading with ads. Registration walls demanding to suck up all your information. You have to give your email to read this article. all things like that that I understand. I understand why it's done, but. I, you know, I want people to just like going to tech and like reading it and not feel restricted. I want them to be able to share the articles I want people to, to enjoy going there. I don't wanna annoy, I, my, business model in my head should not be about annoying people, and it shouldn't be about making it frustrating and making you pay to get rid of an annoyance or to get past an annoyance. But to do that, unfortunately, that takes away a lot of the leverage that that other publications use, that sort of pressure people into, into supporting them. And so this is an experiment and we're saying, you know, like, look, we're not going to annoy you. our content is gonna be out there and you can get it and see it. We don't lock it up under any kind of, restrictive way. But we need money to, to be able to keep doing that. And so we thought what might be really fun is we can, give a coin. and we've gotten, great response so far. bunch of people have gotten the coin we put in because you know, the coin will be sent in 2026. 2026 is the 30th anniversary of section two 30, which is obviously an important law that we talk about all the time. and, uh, so the coin is a commemoration of 30 years of section two 30. and so we're sort of excited to talk about that and get that out in the world.

Ben Whitelaw: 16:22

Great. Well, very, very nice idea. the perfect gift for any relative. I'd say,

Mike Masnick: 16:27

Yes, though it won't ship until January or February, so you could, you could tell people you're getting it, getting them the gift and maybe like, we'll print you a certificate or something, but not, not for Christmas.

Ben Whitelaw: 16:39

The, the gift that keeps on giving. Um, yeah, that really exciting stuff. Obviously we'll include links in the show notes for both the resident computing manifesto and also the tech that coin. we should crack on today's stories, Mike, not least, because we have a really great bonus chat with, CCI i's Tricia McCleary, who you spoke to very recently. What's in store for listeners if they stick around?

Mike Masnick: 17:01

Yeah, we had a really, really interesting conversation about a story that's happening in Australia. We're gonna talk about another story that's happening in Australia in a moment. this is not about the social media ban, but about another thing that they're working on, which is to get digital platforms to pay a tax. somewhat for letting users share news stories, but even with the new version, even if they say you can't share news stories, they still wanna force the digital platforms to pay news publishers. And so the Australian government is currently asking for comments on its latest proposal. So Tricia and I. Have a really interesting conversation about what's happening, how the existing news bargaining code that's been in place for a few years now has really been kind of a failure, and how this is an admission, that it's a failure, and how people should be thinking about these kinds of efforts, whether they're linked taxes or these kinds of bargaining codes, and their impact on all different stakeholders, not just the digital platforms and the news publishers, but also the users and people who like to read the news as well.

Ben Whitelaw: 17:58

Mm. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to this. the news bargaining code has been a big topic of discussion. It's been versions of it in other countries. no one has cracked this, so, so great to have Tricia on the podcast to, talk a bit more about that. before we dive in to. The other big Australia story this week. just wanna say a big thank you to all listeners of the podcast. we've had some great feedback over the last few weeks. We get some great messages on Blue Sky. we wouldn't be able to do it without you guys. And so if you'd like the podcast, please pat yourself on the back for listening. Um, but also give us a review and rate us wherever you get your podcasts. It massively helps us get discovered on, on all the major platforms. I will send you some nice words to, to say if you are struggling, please do get in touch. but it all helps. cool. So let's dive in there, Mike. We, I have a theory. it's actually a, a, a fairly well known phenomenon, the idea of a Friday news dump,

Mike Masnick: 18:51

Yes.

Ben Whitelaw: 18:51

This has been happening for years and years and years. goes back to the kind of days when print publications were huge. Politicians would wanna send the news out on a Friday when all the journalists were in the pub. and there were a few people to kind of cover stories. The people who wanted the organization that wanted their stories covered in the weekend papers would obviously wait till the very last second on Friday to give exclusives. But it really, it really kicks us in the nuts on control alt speech because, you know, we record on a Thursday and then all this stuff happens on a Friday. dunno why it still persists, but the stories we're gonna talk about today are two such stories. Right after we, we finished recording last week, we had, The announcement of the European Commission fining, X slash Twitter 120 million Euro for, a breach of the transparency and, Deceptive design obligations of the Digital Services Act. And so we're gonna unpack that. I know it's a, I know it's a week old, but there's so much to talk about. I think we need to get into it. this is the first ever, non-compliance find that the EU has, announced it's something that has been two years in the making. We've, talked about this investigation. probably a dozen times in various guises, but it was announced in December, 2023, and it's been rumbling along in the backgrounds. And for folks who didn't necessarily catch exactly what it entails, this is about three things. it's about X is deceptive use of the blue check mark. Which the EU has said constitutes deceptive design under Article 25 of the DSA, and basically has led to it believes users being defrauded, at scale because people think that three check marks mean that the users are authentic. And as we know, they're not. there is no checks in place. and then it's also about two other things. Not very sexy, not very glamorous, but still important. the ad repository that, the DSA asks all platforms, the large platforms to have and to maintain. It says that x has not been doing that sufficiently well, and therefore it fails its transparency and accessibility, obligations. And then the final one is, data access for researchers. And so all these things together, have led to this giant, fine of 120 million euros. I didn't think this was coming, Mike. I'll be honest. my instant reaction is like. It's a huge sigh of relief that the EU actually got round to doing this'cause because my sense, and, from reading some of the coverage elsewhere, a lot of people thought they weren't going to to do this. They thought they were gonna kind of skip it. and kowtow, we could say to the US administration and some of the big tech players that, have been sitting in the front row. The inauguration, and so this is in, in of itself, the fact that the fines happened. It's a big, big deal.

Mike Masnick: 21:39

Yeah, I mean my reaction was kind of funny. similar but in a different way, which is when I saw this announced, I just immediately said the amount of absolute nonsense that is going to come out of this one fine is incalculable, and we're already seeing that. Right?

Ben Whitelaw: 21:57

Yeah, the reaction has been overwhelming, right.

Mike Masnick: 22:00

Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, the reality is, as you know, like the EU had to do something ex and Elon Musk basically were deliberately. Ignoring the, the rules and, and to me the, like, the verification part is the biggest, which is that, you know, and I had called this out when he changed verification in the first place, which was like just a fundamental misunderstanding of verification, from the very beginning. He always thought of verification as a status symbol, and yes, like it had in some ways had become a status symbol, but that was not its underlying purpose. And to totally change the underlying purpose from like, we are verifying that this is who you really are to one that is, you can pay$8, right? Like, or more. Somebody I just saw a friend of mine who apparently still uses X and is apparently paying for verification, said that he. Just got a bill for like$400 to renew. His verification was like before he is saying, you know, he paid a hundred dollars and they renewed at 400. And he's like, it's worth it to me at a hundred dollars. It is not worth it to me at 400. He was trying to get a refund and apparently it was not working. but like verification has a specific meaning and it is not the way X is doing it. So I think that is a completely legitimate thing for them to call out. the other two I think, are a little bit more complicated. The, researcher access is also, I think, important, but, tricky. And it's easy to say, yes, researchers should have access, but the question is access to what and how. and here it just feels like X was just like, you know, no, uh, which is, not good enough under the law. And then the transparency thing, and, and I've gone on this. you know, there's a, whole bunch of things you can talk about transparency, where I think transparency is really important and good, but government mandated transparency is often problematic and it's often sort of like a backdoor method towards trying to influence certain ways that things are done. But again, just feels like, Elon was just like, screw it. And the thing that I thought was funny about all this is, I remember deeply, I don't know if you remember, but back when Elon first announced he was buying, he announced that he was buying, trying to buy Twitter in April. That came to an agreement on the deal, which he later tried to back out of at the end of April and in May, Terry Britton, our favorite. Went to, meet with Elon Musk at his offices, Tesla's offices. And they had this session where, you know, that Terry said what he was gonna say, and Elon was like, yeah, sure. That sounds great. and they filmed this video, which, Brion knew what he was doing of getting Elon to say, oh yeah. Like, we're totally, we're totally in alignment. We're 100% agreed with the approach that the EU is taking

Ben Whitelaw: 24:45

I remember.

Mike Masnick: 24:46

had no clue what he was actually agreeing to. And now that comes back to bite him, where, he gets fined under DSA, which was the law that he claimed he was 100% aligned on, which is, uh, obviously always, always nonsense. But the thing that that is really crazy is he's running around and the US government is helping him go around and say that this is all about their content moderation decisions and censorship, which is just not true. Right? Like. You could argue that the, transparency mandates maybe touch on that in a sort of oblique and indirect way, but this is not about content moderation at all. It's just not, but he's just presenting it that way. And the US government, because they're still siding with Musk. Even, even, you know, depending on whether or not Musk and Trump are, are friends or not, is still an open question. But they're like running with this story that it's all about censorship. And, one of the things I wrote up in my article was like the FTC recently fined a Chinese technology company for violating coppa, which is the children privacy protection law in the us. And it's the same thing, right? Like you have a foreign company that is not obeying. The law, like you might issue a fine, and like the FTC did that on a vaguely similar issue and nobody ran around saying, oh, you know, the US government is censoring Chinese companies or whatever. Or

Ben Whitelaw: 26:10

No, I mean the, the kind of, there's a lot of, you know, when I do it, it's fine, but when you do it, it's not okay. There's a lot of that.

Mike Masnick: 26:18

That that is the, the sort of MAGA way, but yes.

Ben Whitelaw: 26:22

yeah. and some of the quotes are hilarious. You, like, you had JD Vance saying, the EU should support free speech. Not attack American companies over garbage. It's, and it's, it's like the kind of a administration attack dog being wheeled out to kind of parrot, basically kind of Musk's view. You know, the, US envoy to the EU was saying, making out that this is the EU only ever gave fines to American companies. Which again is like basically just kind of, because some of the major companies are

Mike Masnick: 26:51

which other companies you want them to go after? And, they have, looked at other companies, but the US companies are the largest. And so that's just, that's what's gonna happen.

Ben Whitelaw: 27:00

Yeah, and it's also not true. I mean, Hena Kinnan, who is Terry Breton's replacement as tech policy chief in the eu, she said, you know, we've opened investigations into 10 companies and three of them are American and seven of them are, seven of'em are not. So, that's not a massive proportion. there is probably some significance in the fact that, they've gone after X slash Twitter first. It's, it's the oldest kinda outstanding investigation. one of the other ones that was, also announced last week, which kind of resulted in some compliance was TikTok, which obviously Chinese platform. so it, the kind of optics are for now, for now. Um, the optics are obviously such that there is, we talked about the kind of transatlantic policy. Beef that has been brewing, over the last 12 to 18 months. You know, this feels like a kind of coming to head of that and you know, makes sense in lots of ways that. EU would pick Musk and pick the US administration because of, I guess, the antagonism that has erupted between the, the US and the eu. And, you know, Trump's national security strategy, kind of explicitly calls out a kind of re. retrenchment from European values and says that Europe is decaying. So it's, it is all, all kind of like knits neatly together. Now you kind of see the bigger picture now that this fine has been, been applied. But yeah. didn't like that it happened on a Friday, but it it's good. It's good though'cause you're back in the chair. We can

Mike Masnick: 28:26

we go.

Ben Whitelaw: 28:29

the other kind of funny thing to mention. Which I just think is, it's so musk. Is that after, the announcement was made, I think what the EU tried to do was. Promotes the post OnX in which it announced this, this big find. Right? And somebody from X slash Twitter said, no, no, no, you're not doing that. You are now banned from promoting or making ads on the X platform. So, the only thing that they had up their sleeve was, you're no longer allowed to give us money

Mike Masnick: 29:00

Yeah.

Ben Whitelaw: 29:01

for, that's the only, the only stick they had left.

Mike Masnick: 29:04

They, claimed it was an exploit. They claimed that the, European Commission exploited their advertising system, which a lot of people were like, no, that's always the way it's worked. And it's you're just coming up with an excuse to punish them. it's very petty. Yeah.

Ben Whitelaw: 29:18

Yeah. Super petty. there's a kind of long way for this story to run is the other thing to mention here is like, we don't necessarily know when this will all play out. I was looking at the timelines, Following this kind of announcement, and there is a, it could be up to three and a half months before actually x slash Twitter pay for this. Fine. There's an up to 90 day process where. X may appeal. I don't think that's been confirmed yet. as of recording, there's also, they're expected to kind of go back on both the blue checks and the ad and the data access, obligations to, see how they can come to a negotiation there. Then there's a whole month where the DSA can say. You know, look at that evidence, see how they feel about what X have proposed. And then there's another 30 days where the EU then makes a decision about, the evidence that's been put forward to them. So it could be a fairly long time before anybody pays anybody any money. and you, you never know where Musk is concerned, what he's got up

Mike Masnick: 30:14

Yeah, I was gonna say like, you, you actually think he'll pay or, or what? You know, so I.

Ben Whitelaw: 30:20

Yeah. but it's a, it is a very interesting development, very much on the, in the wheelhouse of control speech. And I'm sure, listeners will have followed it this week. we'll move on to an another story that actually happened on Friday as well. we've had a lot in the last few months about visas, about H one B visas and. The announcement that was made last week is about how these, these kind of restrictions around visas are gonna now apply to trust and safety workers and other people who work in the kind of information integrity space. And this was some news that went down really badly, wasn't it? It's affecting potentially a lot of people.

Mike Masnick: 30:54

Yeah, basically said there, there had been talk before from Marco Rubio and stuff about, limiting sensors, that, which is always nonsense, right? but, you know, the suggestion had been that it would focus on people like proton and saying like, oh, you can't come to the US anymore. You know, the policymaker level of people or like. The Brazilian judge who went after Musk last year, you it was stories like that. But what they're now saying is that H one B visas are basically to be denied to anyone anywhere around the sort of information integrity ecosystem. So anyone who's worked in trust and safety, anyone who's done anything on content moderation. Anyone who's worked on fact checking, like, uh, anyone who, who's done, misinformation, disinformation research, all of this kinda stuff that is reason to reject your H one b. application. Now, H one B visas. this is for, employment. It's an employment visa to come to work in the United States. And obviously there are a lot of people who work in those fields who are here in the US on an H one B Visa because you have a lot of global expertise. you know, people who are working on stopping CS. and have expertise may not be allowed to come work in the us. there are a bunch of these things and it's just like this purely, again, very petty, based on the false belief that anyone who works on any of these issues is involved in censorship. whereas. It itself to me is actual government censorship. It is punishing people for speech around fact checking or, trust and safety things or research on disinformation. It is the, the US government treating people differently based on their speech, which is, that's what censorship is, you know, trust and safety. It's not that fact checking is not that, for all their talk of how much they believe in the marketplace of ideas. They hate the marketplace of ideas when it includes fact checking.

Ben Whitelaw: 32:50

Yeah.

Mike Masnick: 32:51

you know, so this is. I think people are going to protest it. and there's already been some talk of, trying to challenge this rule, though I don't, I'm not exactly sure how they would that or, find like someone who, who has standing to challenge this rule. but it just seems like a complete mess. Very petty and just is, you know, sticks with the, false. Story that, the MAGA world believes that all of disinformation trust and safety work and fact checking is all about censorship when it's really very rarely has anything to do with that.

Ben Whitelaw: 33:25

Yeah, it made me think of the last manifesto I read before yours, before the resident computing manifesto, and that was the Jimbo, the kinda Mark Andre Techno Optimist Manifesto, which called out trust and safety workers as the

Mike Masnick: 33:40

The enemy of progress.

Ben Whitelaw: 33:42

the enemy of progress. and I just thought, you know, that was, I think kind of middle of 2024. At that stage, were kind of thinking, well, that's a kind of mad thing to say. You know, like there's a misunderstanding there of what trust and safety

Mike Masnick: 33:57

From a person who is on the board of Meta, but we will leave that aside for now.

Ben Whitelaw: 34:03

yeah, yeah. And funding. God knows how many other companies that have trust and safety teams. anyway, but yeah. You can see a kind of direct line from, from that point almost, you know, because it's, we know the links between, Andresen and, the US administration and how connected those kind of ecosystems are now. And it, it's silly now to think that that was a, a mad thing to say. It's actually foreshadowing of, of this, this single story, right? these visas being, restricted for people who do important work.

Mike Masnick: 34:35

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty crazy, right? I mean, there's definitely been a bunch of different things that sort of all foreshadowed this, and certainly the attacks on, Stanford, and the internet observatory and, projects like that, and all these efforts to sort of understand the flow of information and truthful versus untruthful information or manipulating information, all this stuff. And what's funny is that. At the same time, all this is happening in the administration is insisting that all of this stuff is bad. They're doing things that suggest that, like they're now talking about like foreign influence campaigns. It's like, yeah, how do you stop that? You have a good trust and safety team that tries to root out foreign influence campaigns. the whole freak out over when Charlie Kirk was assassinated and suddenly they were all demanding. Like, well, you have to take down all of this content from social media. It's like, so you want trust and safety. It's just, you know. The hypocrisy is always the same thing, where it's like, yeah, we want you to take on the stuff we don't like, we just don't like it when you take on the stuff we like, you know? So,

Ben Whitelaw: 35:34

Yeah.

Mike Masnick: 35:34

um, there's no principle there other than we should be able to do whatever we want and you shouldn't be able to do the stuff we don't want you to do.

Ben Whitelaw: 35:42

Yeah,

Mike Masnick: 35:42

which is not of particularly strongly values-based position. It's

Ben Whitelaw: 35:48

Not what I call a principle, but I, it does cut the mustard in some, some corners. So this, this is also, you know, Alice Hunsberger who writes Trust and Safety Insider, the newsletter that comes out at the start of the week from everything in moderation. She wrote about these visas and she said she got. overwhelming number of messages from people who work in trust and safety and in fact, checking and in, research kind of worried about what this means for them, understandably. And, you know, she, she's put out some really helpful resources, over the past week, which will include in the show notes for people who, who might be worried about what happens when these visas change. But it's, again, I think it's one of those things where people aren't going to talk about it. Very openly for obvious reasons, but it's something that a lot of people are likely to, to face, and, and that's a real, that's a real trouble, um, a real troubling issue for us. one story, Mike, that we'll go onto next, actually didn't happen last Friday. It had the, had the decency of happening this

Mike Masnick: 36:43

incredible.

Ben Whitelaw: 36:45

So, you know,

Mike Masnick: 36:46

So this was planned, uh, uh, a while in advance, but yes.

Ben Whitelaw: 36:50

Yeah, so this is the Australia Social Media Ban Thunder Sixteens, which we talked about on the podcast last week. 10 platforms, who've been designated by the eSafety Commission, as needing to take reasonable steps to prevent under sixteens from creating or, or using accounts that came into place yesterday, as of Wednesday. And so we have seen a lot of coverage about this story, which we've been talking about a very long time. understandably, because it's just gone into force. people don't know anything. There's no, all, all that's happened is that platforms have essentially kind of tried to stop under sixteens using their accounts. And so the way that news outlets and media have covered that is by essentially. Getting under sixteens to open their phones in front of a camera. And it's a wonderful I would say, hearkening back to an old time in journalism where, it's a bit like you, when you have school results day and you, you know, you have to kind of train your camera on the, the opening of the envelope or the, the face of the, the 16-year-old as they, as they get the results. This is slightly different, but similar-ish and. There's lots of vox pops, lots of kind of, mics being shoved in un under 16 euros. Faces asking them how do they feel, in the very instant that this popup comes on their screen and they're told that they no longer can see their snaps. Uh, funny, funny set of days of, of coverage. what have you been seeing as you've been following the story over the last kind of 24 or 48 hours?

Mike Masnick: 38:18

Yeah, I mean, a few different things. So one is just, numerous stories and everybody kind of expected this of kids getting around the bands sort of showing how, how silly they were. My favorite, there are a bunch of these, but my favorite one was someone uploaded a photo of a golden retriever. and that apparently let them in. So it's like, yeah, you wonder how, how thorough these, these things are. So, and you have a bunch of kids sort of talking about like, you know, how easy it's to get through, and even how they're like joking with their parents about like, ha ha, like, we're not supposed to be using this service. But one of them uploaded a picture of, uh, or held up a picture of her mom. And I was able to get through and then sent it to her mom. I was like, I I'm you now. Uh,

Ben Whitelaw: 39:04

The mom was complicit in the

Mike Masnick: 39:06

Yeah. And so, you know, so there's a bunch of those kinds of stories, but I think that there is a more serious sort of discussion going on where people are like, kids are saying, like, this is really. Awful. This is obnoxious. You're treating us, as if we have no agency ourselves. Like we have rights ourselves. And you think that we're just, you know, you're, gonna solve big problems by banning us from, from the tools that we use that often we use to establish important relationships and have, things that are, helpful, have support groups, and. You're just sort of ripping that all away and not dealing with any of the underlying problems. And so I thought it was really good to see. I've seen a few kids who are probably not liked by their, many of their friends going around saying like, no, this is good. This is good. We need this. But like almost. The vast majority of comments I've seen from kids are saying like, you know, this is, why are we doing this? Like, this just feels really outta place. And then at the same time, as I sort of alluded to in the intro, you have the politicians down in Australia who are so over the top gleeful about this in ways that are really. Kind of unseemly. I mean, you had Julian and Grant, who's the eaf commissioner saying like, I'm trying to contain my excitement. You're excited about blocking kids from their friends. Like

Ben Whitelaw: 40:31

Mm.

Mike Masnick: 40:31

is like, movie evil kind of stuff. and then you just have totally outta touch stuff. I mean, the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who's this was like one of his big things. He really wanted, this is going on about how this will save us all. It's like, what are you talking about? And like, for Australian kids, allowing them just to have their childhood, it's this weird moral panic nostalgia, like. If only we got rid of cell phones, kids would magically be back how I grew up, decades ago. It's like the world moves on and it changes. And this is just the same moral panic that we see over and over again. And just doing a complete ban. I mean, I've talked about this a bunch of times. I don't need to repeat everything that I always say, but like, this is not teaching kids how to adapt to the modern world. It is just, keeping them out of it and then suddenly saying like, when you turn 16, suddenly you'll be able to. Manage it when you haven't had the training, when you haven't gone through the process of learning this stuff. and without trying to do anything that tackles any of the underlying issues that actually do make things unsafe. it's just, it feels like a very, very stupid, very blunt policy that will have a ton of negative consequences, and I doubt it will have particularly, many good consequences.

Ben Whitelaw: 41:46

Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, there's, there's a lot of chat about, this story and I, I would agree with lots of what you said there. I think the thing that's, that stood out for me, Mike, was the reactions of a couple of really big charities and NGOs who focus on. Children's welfare. So unicef very surprisingly put out a statement, headlined, age restrictions alone, won't keep children safe, and Save the Children said something similar, that, you know, the focus must be on making social media safer children. and, and the the sense from those two pieces is that actually this alone, this kind of band for under sixteens isn't necessarily gonna. definitively work, which AC counters this, as you say this, I think sense from the eSafety Commission and from the Australian political establishment, that it's a done deal. It's gonna help children, it's gonna save lives. And these statements add a lot more kind of nuance. You know, the UNICEF one says, social media bans come with their own risks and they might even backfire, which is a really interesting note for a charity of its size to, call

Mike Masnick: 42:45

Yeah. UNICEF even goes even further.'cause they say, they actually call out the, full opposite side where they say social media is not a luxury for many children, especially those who are isolated or marginalized. It is a lifeline

Ben Whitelaw: 42:56

Yeah.

Mike Masnick: 42:57

which makes you wonder like, did anyone in Australia talk to UNICEF before this? Did they talk to save the children before this? For all the talk that they're saving, saving children and bringing back childhoods to not talk to unicef, to not talk to save the children. Like, honestly, it wouldn't have surprised me if these two organizations would've just gone along with it because sometimes they've done that. Here. For them to come out against it after it went to to effect is really noteworthy.

Ben Whitelaw: 43:23

Yeah, I also kind of wonder to what extent UNICEF have come to this conclusion over the last year since the law was put in place. You know, I would be really interested to know, maybe we can find out over the course of the next few weeks kind of where this view has come from. Is it something they've always had? Is it something they've arrived at from speaking to experts? I think we know a lot more now than we did 12 months ago, but it's fascinating that these. Two organizations have come out saying pretty much the same thing, in such a kind of consequential week for social media use in Australia. But, you know, again, a long running story that isn't quite the end. But as, as a significant milestone, certainly we are gonna wrap up and go to our, our excellent bonus chat with Trisha from CCIA in a second, Mike. But you wanted to kind of touch on one last story that was you found interesting. Twitter. The Twitter, not, not X. Twitter is potentially making a comeback.

Mike Masnick: 44:15

Well, we'll see about that. Basically, this is a fun one. We'll do it quick, but like, it's basically these two trademark lawyers, looked at what Elon is doing and the rebranding to X and said he has abandoned the Twitter trademark and trademarks on tweets. and so they are trying to get them to declared as abandoned and then claiming them themselves for their own commercial use and they're trying to launch something. Called, uh, what, what, what are they calling it? Better? Twitter.

Ben Whitelaw: 44:46

Twitter.

Mike Masnick: 44:47

It's Twitter new, the company's called, they, they're calling it Operation Bluebird. it's sort of like the trademark angle is fun. And normally it's very difficult to get a trademark declared abandoned. usually you need to wait like three years is usually the, time limit, and they have to have done nothing with it within three years. But this is a little different because Elon has been so vocal about like, we're not Twitter, it's not tweets. And so, I'm skeptical just because I think getting, trademark abandonment declared is like very, very difficult and happens so rarely. But a bunch of trademark lawyers, who are, knowledgeable on this stuff kind of say like, well, there's a strong case here and these two guys are trademark lawyers, so maybe they can do it. The thing that I find. Really silly about this story is like all of their communication beyond the trademark angle, which is like, oh, we're launching this Twitter new and we need the, public square to come back and, we're gonna do it right And like none of the other. Okay. And so I am biased. The bell

Ben Whitelaw: 45:50

Ding, ding.

Mike Masnick: 45:51

ding, ding, ding. I'm on blue sky, which, you know, has. I think the new Twitter, uh, but they wanna build a new one and they seem to, because they're trademark lawyers, I would, I would guess they seem to overindex on the name. If only we have the trademarks, then we would become the new public square and suddenly have this great thing and they insist that they're gonna do it right because they are going to have trust and safety as if nobody has ever thought. And they're like, we're gonna do it right as if nobody tries to do it right. It just seemed incredibly naive about all this. and just seem to really think that everything is based on the trademark. And if they can get the trademark for themselves, that suddenly they can build the new Twitter that will work. I am fairly skeptical of that for a variety of reasons. Again, I'm biased, but whatever. And then even on the trademark side, I'm not convinced that they'll, successfully get it, maybe I'd put the odds at 50 50 at this point that they could get the trademark.

Ben Whitelaw: 46:52

Interesting. I mean, I, for one, welcome, another platform that we can critique the trust and safety credentials of, you know, I think the, the more the merrier at

Mike Masnick: 47:01

I, I, I love watching people do the speed run. Uh, you know, a assuming that they know how content moderation works and then discovering in real time that they have no clue. That is wonderful fodder for me to write about. So,

Ben Whitelaw: 47:12

Exactly. dust down that post. It's, it's gonna make a comeback.

Mike Masnick: 47:18

Yeah, yeah,

Ben Whitelaw: 47:19

Um, talking of comebacks, Trisha has already appeared on the podcast and she's back

Mike Masnick: 47:24

She is, she is back again. And we had a great conversation last month, about the AI and, open internet related stuff and, and permission based internet. And this is in that same vein, but specifically looking at, um. This other problematic proposal. I've always joked for years, I've joked that Australia is where like good internet policy goes to die. It is the upside down, of, uh, internet policy of everywhere else. it just takes these stances and doesn't seem to care about the consequences. We're seeing that with the age verification thing, but now we're also seeing it with what has been in existence for a while now, the news bargaining code, and now they're working on this new. News bargaining incentive, which was basically an admission that the news bargaining code didn't work. And they're, they're trying to, sort of up the ante. I, I, I guess a bit. and it's a problematic proposal and it's out for comment right now. So they're Australia's asking people to comment on it. And so we had Tricia McCleary, who's the media advocacy manager at CCIA on for this really interesting discussion. About this proposal and what it means and what it will mean for, platforms, news providers, and more importantly, for consumers of news, which is all of us. And so let's jump right into that conversation now. Okay, Tricia, welcome back to the Control Alt Speech podcast. we wanted to talk today about the news bargaining code and I guess this new news bargaining initiative in Australia. Can you talk a little bit about the history? What is the news bargaining code?

Tricia McCleary: 49:10

Absolutely. And thanks so much for having me, Mike. so Australia's news media bargaining code came into effect in 2021, often described as the world's first link text, quote unquote, even though the government, of course does their best to avoid that term. at its core, it's a law that forces certain digital services and Australian news publishers, into mandatory bargaining over. Payments for news content, so just for linking to news. and then of course, that process going on with an arbitrator able to set the price if those negotiations break down. we're looking back, the code emerged from a previous investigation back around 2017, by Australia's competition authority. Argued that digital services had stronger bargaining power, compared to traditional news outlets. The government really positioned the code as a way to support journalism amid the broader decline of, you know, advertising revenue in this kind of digital transition that newsrooms were undergoing. As well as kind of, I don't wanna say collapse, but kind of this transition of legacy media business models. but four years later. So yeah, flash forward to 2025. we're seeing that the code really hasn't lived up to the government's expectations. Uh, last year, a parliamentary review deemed the code. Limited INE effectiveness and now it's seeking those new methods of supplementation. and, you know, enter this consultation they've had right now, which I know we'll get into in a few. But that is in the form of an incentive, which is what they're calling it though it does really operate as a tax. but because, the code failed to meaningfully. Strengthen the sustainability of public interest journalism and really disproportionately benefited larger media companies and overall did not address right. Those long-term structural challenges facing the news factor. They are seeking a new way to almost bring digital services back to the table. like, okay, if you're saying you won't enter these deals, we will. Tax you anyway, and then you might get that money back depending on what deals you choose to enter.

Mike Masnick: 51:18

Yeah, if I could summarize it, like my sense, and correct me if I'm wrong, my sense is basically this whole thing has always been about just, shifting money from certain companies to certain other companies, which is an odd thing, I think for the government to be in the business of, of sort of deciding. I, I understand taxing for the purpose of funding the government, but taxing saying these companies pay money to these other companies always felt a little strange to me. But that seems to be the main focus of both the original bargaining code, which again, as you mentioned. doesn't seem to have worked. and now this new initiative, which is basically just kind of, it feels like doubling down on the fact that the original version didn't work. It doesn't seem to fix anything other than putting more pressure, on companies to, take money and transfer it to other companies. Are there other lessons that you think. Because right now there are certainly other countries out there. Canada obviously put in place a similar law. There've been attempts in the US and specifically in California. there's been talk of other countries doing similar things as well. but as you noted, the one in Australia really I think almost everybody recognizes that it hasn't lived up to the promises. are there lessons that we can take from. The Australian experiment.

Tricia McCleary: 52:40

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I think what you're saying is completely right. It really is a little bit of a pr spin on a wealth transfer. Um, but the law has been in effect for a few years, right? And the picture is. It is mixed in a, couple of senses, right? So the code has resulted in commercial agreements that did transfer money to Australian publishers, right? There are of course different estimates there, but a lot, quite a few believe that was in the sense of several hundred million Australian dollars in aggregate. but as expected and as many people did warn, about these predictable side effects. We've been seeing a bit of a concerning sense in the fragmentation of the news industry and things like that. I always think back to, Tim Burners Lee, who founded the worldwide web right back, back in the day, said that this draft legislation when Australia was considering it really risked, breaching a fundamental principle of the web. By requiring that payment for linking, which is something I know that we talked about kind of with this permission based landscape that we spoke about during the last episode. but the code really introduced structural fragility into the information ecosystem, right? These shifts didn't affect the larger outlets, right? Who had the means and, you know, obviously audience to continue. they really constrained the visibility of smaller and local independent publishers who rely heavily on referral traffic, although the bill initially, or the law right? Said that those were the very newsrooms they were setting out to save. Right. I feel like the ecosystem overall kind of became more brittle, not more resilient compared to what they were hoping. it also distorted incentives within the new sector itself. Right. You know, larger incumbents captured that line share of negotiated deals. It widened the resources gap. between metropolitan outlets and smaller regional, publishers. And I think that dynamic in a lot of cases reinforces consolidation concerns within media and has made it harder, not easier for, emerging or local. Newsrooms to, compete or to innovate. Right? And I think most notably, right, it not only has achieved intended outcomes, but has made things even worse, Like Australia's news sector has not experienced a research and, and sustainability as a result. and as we see, like you said, the states and the us you know, federal government considering as well as quite a few other international ones, I think there's a couple, couple takeaways. Um. Money alone does not solve systemic problems. You know, it's kind of like putting that bandaid on something rather than seeking out a sustainable way of funding. wealth transfers may certainly right, help newsrooms in some capacity, but they don't fix those changes or react to the changes we're seeing in the digital economy or the advertising economy or shifts in consumer habits where. readers are, you know, seeking out different means of getting their news and getting their information And I think, so overall, the, the model has spread. We're seeing kind of this contagion in a couple of different places. Right. I know New Zealand has had called into question what this means, Brazil, South Africa. Um, as well as back home and they've continued to borrow from the Australian playbook. and Canada really also adopted a very similar approach with its online news act. and that results in limited news, availability, arms to smaller publications that rely on those internet traffic. Again, like we've said, right, like most of the benefits did overall go to larger established media companies, those who had maybe the legal teams or the means to strike deals, quote unquote. but again, local, regional, independent outlets, these policymakers say they wanna help the most. Were not uniformly strengthened. So I think it's a good warning for. Governments to heed, right? And again, as we always say, it's having a healthy information ecosystem and news is crucial to democracy and in times of, you know, natural disaster and things like that. But it's important to note that we've seen this happen quite a few times now, and even Australia is admitting the limitations of their own code, um, and figuring out how to, how to fix it.

Mike Masnick: 56:38

Yeah, I haven't looked at the numbers recently, but I think about a year ago I had looked, there was a, an organization that was tracking, journalist hirings and firings, and, you know, publication, openings and closings in Australia and found that, there were still a ton of layoffs and, and some, especially smaller news orgs seemed to be shutting down, which was, again, we were sort of told the opposite would happen. And so. That was kind of unfortunate. So you discussed a little bit in the opening that now the Australian government has effectively admitted that this was a failure.. They're doing this new thing called the news bargaining incentive as opposed to the news bargaining code. and they have a comment period. Open right now. they're looking for feedback on that. and that closes on December 19th, I believe,

Tricia McCleary: 57:21

that's right.

Mike Masnick: 57:21

Australian time. So translate that

Tricia McCleary: 57:24

I know.

Mike Masnick: 57:25

to,

Tricia McCleary: 57:26

Add or subtract hours.

Mike Masnick: 57:28

Um,

Tricia McCleary: 57:28

not sure.

Mike Masnick: 57:29

you, can you, a little bit about what are they looking at with the news bargaining incentive?

Tricia McCleary: 57:34

Yeah, so really it's been interesting to see the Australian government speak about this. So back in 2024, they released a report. Acknowledging the limitations of the code. and then we heard a consultation is on its way. it'll be here soon, and then a year later, so just back in November of this year, did they release that? So they've really been framing this as an update to reinforce the original one. And address those limitations officials continue to kind of position this incentive as a way to strengthen this framework. but I think the review has made it clear that the weaknesses are unlikely to be solved by layering on, you know, even more bargaining mandates. So instead of focusing on bargaining over content right now, they're imposs. Almost as, I don't wanna say scheme, right? I know it sounds evil, but a little bit of a scheme that acts like a revenue linked levy, on a very small number of digital services. If the government decides they have not. You know, stricken enough deals with news publishers or, you know, if they're not spending enough money. but despite it being labeled, it really functions almost like a retroactive tax on this handful of companies and global companies, but almost all American based as well, based only on their Australian revenue. and the government keeps saying, we're not trying to raise revenue. Like, that's not the plan here. If a company doesn't enter into those government favored commercial agreements, it must make ultimately a mandatory payment to the government. So the way we are looking at this is it's almost structurally indistinguishable from a tax. I think what's most important to note here is that we've seen kind of waves of. Technological transition in news from newspapers, radio, tv, the internet, now, AI tools and functionalities, right? And so while Australia seeks out digital services to Foot the bill, it significantly misunderstands the online ecosystem, nor does it account for future innovations, down the line or how people, how the way people are getting their news will evolve.

Mike Masnick: 59:29

Yeah. So while this comment period is open, what, kinds of comments are you hoping or expecting to see people make?

Tricia McCleary: 59:37

Yeah, a couple things. I think one. it really is a discriminatory tax, regardless of whatever you wanna call it, how you wanna spin it, how you wanna wrap it with a bow. Like if the government is imposing a payment triggered by company's revenue and it's failure to enter into these agreements, that's a tax. Right? And I think rules like this also raise a couple of concerns under trade agreements such as the Australia Free Trade Agreement that the US has entered with them, which are obviously discouraged as discriminatory taxes. targeting those digital services. I think revenue thresholds, again, as an entity are inherently discriminatory, just like past service tax as we've seen. Um, it really targets a small set of American companies. Revenue bears no relationship to influence, particularly in the news industry or market power or consumer news consumption. and within the consultation they're asking questions about, oh, what the thresholds should be, but regardless of that, right, shifting the threshold doesn't fix that fundamental, Defect. And then most importantly, I think really that this approach does nothing to make journalism sustainable. It's like you said earlier, like simply reallocating money from a few digital services into select publishing businesses. It doesn't consider how people find information. Why traditional advertising models have declined, or how to really build a resilient local newsroom over the long term. So ultimately, it's our hope that the Australian government really reconsider this approach, given that it's looking to extend a lifeline to a law that isn't even working.

Mike Masnick: 1:01:05

Yeah. then just to wrap up the conversation, what do you think it does to the overall online information ecosystem? When we have something like a link tax that, changes the way that the internet has always worked historically, where, you know, you could link to anything. But here where it's introducing this idea of a link text, what, what is the larger impact of that?

Tricia McCleary: 1:01:29

I think it goes back to our initial conversation, right, and this concept of an open web and how important it is. Link Tax has really undermined that. Open architecture, you know, and the importance of linking and the importance of having the ability to freely share information. I think when linking or indexing news becomes expensive or at times legally risky, depending on how countries are approaching it, digital services can naturally, naturally pull back, right? Depending on the approach, they can show less news, invest less in surfacing local reporting, shifting resources towards other content. I think that means less discoverability for credible journalism. Um, reduced referral traffic for small publishers who rely on that either for, grassroots audiences or advertising as well. it's a more fragmented news environment, which I think is. difficult considering that we look at how people use the internet in times where traditional media might not be getting information quickly enough, or crowdsourcing, I think to like the citizen app for crime and things like that, or just how like. X and different social media platforms have been used in times of um, like during the California wildfires, right? I think there are also fewer opportunities for new outlets to emerge if they don't have that ability to connect with digital audiences and ultimately users have less access to reliable information. I think the irony is that this policy were seeing in Australia and other ones that are considering is that although it's intended to help journalism, it really is reducing the visibility of said journalism.

Mike Masnick: 1:03:00

Yeah, yeah. it's definitely a, a big concern. Again, the, there's an open comment period. Now it ends next week. By the time, hopefully by the time you hear this, if you listen to this soon after. Of the podcast comes out. but, uh, Trisha McCleary from CCIA, thank you so much for joining us and, telling us all about what is happening down under.

Tricia McCleary: 1:03:17

thanks so much for having me.

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