[mattoxic]

The Australian consumer has already lost. This whole country is an exercise in trussing up the public and making sure they pay the very most for the very least.

I've long given up on Australian journalism - at least in the main stream. Obviously the Murdoch papers are garbage, but the Age and SMH are almost (and becoming) as appalling. The ABC and SBS have been cowered to the extent that they jump at their own shadows and now _have_ to include cometary from utter fuckwits like Gerard Henderson or that vast twit Greg Sheridan lest they appear biased. It now seems that the ABC almost has to ask permission to publish a story. The Age was a great newspaper, now it's almost unreadable - apart form the NYTimes and Wapo stories they run.

Google are not the good guys. They are a rapacious monopoly that have their shareholders interest at heart, NOT the Google consumer. And in terms of "trusting them with our data" - like that's the very least we'd expect from a product that purports to do this - and they don't do this for free - WE pay for it.

Like cry me a river Google - like News Corp, they pay fuck all tax in Australia, and, just like Murdoch, are more than happy to take advertising from fake news and conspiracy pushers that does nothing but fatten their profits and damage society.

There is good media out there - Crikey, The Guardian, New Matilda, new Daily etc, but it isn't mainstream, one has to, dare I say, search for it.

[NamTaf]

You and the parent post both sum up my feelings better than I can. We Aussies are being used as meat in the grinder between two companies that are each pretty awful in their own ways. I struggle to feel bad for either of them, really.

Probably the most depressing of all of this is how the ACCC - what has always been a very closely treasured and respected independent government body - has been used here as a pawn by the government-media oligarchy. It really soils all the really good work they've done to give us very robust and fair consumer laws and protections we enjoy. They've been used as the shitkickers for what is obviously a Murdoch-driven government play, where (not unlike the Five Eyes playbook) he hopes to ram through some draconian bullshit here as a proving ground, to which he can later point in the UK and US for similar laws there.

One of the best decisions I ever made was adding Newscorp's bullshit to my ad blocker so accidentally clicking URLs to it fails to load. One of the other best was disconecting myself from Google as much as I have.

[theRandomMoron]

Yep, it is offensive that the ACCC would even contribute to this nonsensical "debate". There is not a shred of preserving Competition in the News Media and digital landscapes in Australia. There is certainly no way the ACCC has acted in the interest of the Consumer. This whole debacle serves a few financial and political interests and works against healthy debate, democracy and the population's interest.

Access to a variety of editorial positions in the media is not possible for the average Aussie. Newscorp control the opinions of the country and the electorate - a balanced view is not within the grasp of Australia anymore, regardless of how this legislation turns out.