Google says a new Australian law will force it to impair its services in a variety of ways, but the country's competition regulator says the search giant is misstating the facts. Who is right? Both sides of this fight are arguably guilty of ratcheting up the rhetoric. A thread:

Google mentions YouTube a number of times, and even had the head of the service in Australia write an open letter about how the law would supposedly impact creators (lower rankings and less money), but the legislation never mentions YouTube. It's about Google search and News 2/

Google suggests that if it pays publishers for their content, that will mean less money for everyone else, but it seems ridiculous for a company with $160 billion in revenue to claim that paying publishers pennies for their news is going to put it in the poor house 3/

But the Australian government isn't telling the whole truth either. For one thing, it says that the law is required to level the playing field between news companies and the search giant, but the law will primarily benefit billionaires like the Murdoch and Packer families 4/

Australia -- and other countries with similar laws -- want to blame Google and Facebook for ruining the economics of the news business because that's easier than the truth, which is that the media industry changed as a result of the internet and most publishers failed to adapt 5/

Will charging Google for every news story change that in any significant way? No. That horse has left the barn. And sending money to the billionaire owners who failed to adapt isn't going to help the media business in Australia or anywhere else. More here: https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/google-plays-hardball-in-australia-over-new-publisher-payment-law.php

Ben Thompson at Stratechery calls the proposed Australian law "a tax on two American companies and a subsidy for Australia’s incumbent media companies" https://stratechery.com/2020/australias-news-media-bargaining-code-breaking-down-the-code-australias-fake-news/ and @jeffjarvis calls it "pure Murdoch protectionism" https://twitter.com/jeffjarvis/status/1296174449998409737

I should note as an addendum that while YouTube is not specifically mentioned in the code, some media watchers in Australia think it could be added by name due to pressure from private broadcasters who see it as their competition