Australia to Potentially Put more Pressure on Big Tech

Australia is to announce a parliamentary inquiry into the behaviour of the world's largest technology companies, as well as the need for new legislation later on Wednesday. 

Australia has no doubt been leading the battle against the overwhelming power of the likes of Alphabet and Facebook for quite some time. Earlier this year, the country implemented new legislation that made both tech companies pay local media for content, resulting in Google threatening to close its Australian search engine, and Facebook cutting all third-party content from Australian accounts for over a week. Both tech giants have eventually struck deals with Australian media companies after a series of amendments were made to the legislation.

Raising the possibility of additional regulation, Scott Morrison - Australia’s Prime Minister, will say on Wednesday if the new inquiry will have a wide scope, but will include asking lawmakers to investigate the algorithms used by social media platforms, as well as how the companies verify identification and age.

"Big tech has big questions to answer. Big tech created these platforms, they have a responsibility to ensure they’re safe”, Morrison commented. 

The committee in charge of the new inquiry will report back its findings by February 15th, 2022.

*The products advertised are only available to clients under Fondex Limited (SDL No: SD037). Trading CFDs involves significant risk of loss.