[antonymy]

It's sad, but this isn't going to work. Facebook and Google don't need these newspapers. The newspapers need Facebook and Google. We already saw a law exactly like this one in Spain, after the EU tried protecting its local news outlets from Google, and the result was Google calling the bluff and simply pulling every newspaper in Spain from Google News until the nation capitulated and created exemption rules that essentially returned everything to status quo ante.

These kinds of laws are written by people who clearly do not understand the relationship between the tech giants and traditional media, and have no comprehension of who holds the leverage.

[humanlion87]

On a related note, Australia successfully pass a similar law that forced Facebook and Google to re-negotiate with newspapers and sign a deal. I don't know whether it was actually a good law or not, but it seems to me like there could be different approaches to making such laws and some might work and some won't.

[n4r9]

Matt Stoller certainly thinks it was good: https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/should-we-save-newspapers...

I haven't gotten round to reading that article in detail yet, but I find him pretty insightful when it comes to the harmful impacts of market consolidation.