Hyperbole. I don’t think the proposed legislation quite says what he think it says. Nor will it negatively impact his channel in any tangible way. I don’t think it provides a framework for existing media kingpins to restablish a monopoly on digital service platforms in region.
It seems to provide a frameowrk for participating news organisations that meet some minimum standards in Australia (media codes of conduct, min revenue thresholds) to collectively bargain for better commercial terms from digital platofrm providers. It does not specify what that means in practice, but I guess you could infer it could mean anything from advertising rates to potential revenue sharing.
It requires participating news organisations to not be discriminated against with regards to platform algorithms and requires advance notice of any algorithm changes that may affect potential revenues/view counts if it may potentially have a 15% projected impact. Note it does not require these agencies to have preferential treatment in any way, nor does it require exposure of how algorithms work.
It requires some data sharing from the platform services provider, but not really anything more than what they can probably already do with the tools provided by the platform holder or their own tools.
It does require the platform service provider to potentially share some data as it relates to the value they extract from the news providers being on their platform, but that could be good or bad - it may benefit the platform holder in commercial negotiation if they extract little or less value than expected, for example.
It requires maybe a bit more functionality as it requires to moderation tooling (comments/deletes/bans), or at least expects the platform provider to improve that level of service/functionality.
It does not require any platform provider to share any data that explicitly describes how their algorithms work, or that may be construed as a trade secret. They point is called out a few times, so it will be easy for platform holders to withhold anything they could concievably advise exposes trade sectrets.
It’s neither good nor bad, really. It’s going to require platform holders to be a little more transaparent with the ‘value’ they extract from hosting certain news content, which may or may not provide a better commercial bargaining position, but it’s not going to provide them any super special preferential treatment beyond that (especially when a platform holder can weild the ‘trade secret’ card).
It’s not even close to some ‘end of YT in Australia’. Joe Blow News out Whereversville is going to be just as algorithmically relevant as it ever was and their ability to get more beneficial commercial terms with a platform holder is unchanged and still, ultimately, a function of their popularity in the platform. All they will be missing is the ability to collectively bargain for better terms - which is a problem now for independants, regardless of medium.
Draft legislation explainer:
Full draft legislation: