They're not gaslighting. This is about News Corp (former owner of Fox News) and a few other multi billion dollar albeit unprofitable media companies using their political sway to extort Google. It will almost certainly result in a worse experience for consumers.
Re:Google: Open Letter to Australians
by vermilingua on Monday August 17, 2020 @12:31AM
(#24184009)
Why is this being downvoted, it's precisely correct. Our government is entirely transparent about how heavily influenced it is by its industry "partners". Murdoch (NewsCorp/Fox) has been dictating policy to the Liberal Party for a long time.
Wow, just turned on my residential VPN and selected my Australian server, can confirm it does load. Didn't even have to clear cookies.
Very sketchy google. Even if the Australian law has issues and alternatives cannot deliver for free, I would not support Google aims here. They are the big news business they are gaslighting into Australians into being afraid of.
I think I now want an auto-loader to compare websites accessed from different locations.