Melbourne. The Australian government announced Thursday that it will introduce a tax on large digital platforms and search engines unless they agree to share revenue with Australian news media organizations.

The tax will apply starting Jan. 1 to tech companies earning more than 250 million Australian dollars ($160 million) annually from Australia, according to Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland.

Companies affected include Meta, Google-parent Alphabet, and ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok.

The government has not specified the size of the tax but emphasized that it will be offset by funds directed to Australian media organizations. The goal is to make revenue-sharing agreements the more cost-effective option for platforms.

"The real objective ... is not to raise revenue—we hope not to raise any revenue. The real objective is to incentivize agreement-making between platforms and news media businesses in Australia," Jones told reporters.

This move follows Meta's announcement that it would not renew three-year deals to pay Australian news publishers for their content. In 2021, the government introduced the News Media Bargaining Code, which forced tech giants to reach revenue-sharing deals with Australian media or face penalties of up to 10 percent of their Australian revenue.

Meta responded to the proposal, stating that the current law was flawed. "The proposal fails to account for the realities of how our platforms work, specifically that most people don't come to our platforms for news content and that news publishers voluntarily choose to post content on our platforms because they receive value from doing so," the company said in a statement.

Google, which has reached revenue-sharing agreements with over 80 Australian news companies in the last three years, has raised concerns about the new tax. "The government's introduction of a targeted tax risks the ongoing viability of commercial deals with news publishers in Australia," a Google spokesperson said.

TikTok, meanwhile, stated that its users do not primarily seek news. "As an entertainment platform, TikTok has never been the go-to place for news. We will actively engage in the consultation process and look forward to hearing more details," the company said.

Jones noted that Australian officials had explained the government's intentions to their counterparts in the United States, where most of the major digital companies are based.

"We want to ensure that they understand the reasoning and also understand that this is not a tax in the normal sense of the word," Jones said. "This is an incentive to bolster up a law that has existed in Australia since 2021."

Rowland emphasized that the revenue-sharing initiative is essential to protect Australian democracy.

"The rapid growth of digital platforms in recent years has disrupted Australia's media landscape and threatens the viability of public interest journalism," Rowland said. "The policy intent here is very clear. It is to incentivize deals between digital platforms, search engines, and Australian news publishers to support the health of our democracy."

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