Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia

Re:Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Goog... by DyslexicAtheist on Monday February 01, 2021 @07:07AM (#25987940)

As somebody who dislikes both the established old media firms of Murdoch & Co, but despises the parasitic Tech surveillance capitalism even more, I welcome this (regressive) attitude. Europeans are fighting for similar reasons which is loss of control of their own media and a takeover by US propaganda and norms by companies who have failed to pay their taxes again and again.

imo it doesn't matter that many of these local outlets are backward, racist and populist rags (never criticizing the Australian concentration camps, or failure of capturing the idiocy of the AAbill, or whatever justifies being outraged about etc), the big guys (FB/Google) are expert in doing the same thing but at scale and with better PR (+ they can do so without paying their taxes).

As long as it hurts BigTech it's the right move no matter what "appears" right or wrong. These firms and their management are parasites and they need to be treated as such until they a) pay their taxes and b) respect local laws.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detenti...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Goog... by zhd on Monday February 01, 2021 @07:11AM (#25987971)

Re: takeover by US firms, note that while Murdoch was born Australian he gave up Australian in favor of US citizenship... precisely because it would have been illegal to own such a stake in US media firms as a non- or dual-citizen.

We would also like the Murdoch media and/or tech giants to pay tax in Australia, yes, but neither do at the moment.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Goog... by 908B64B197 on Monday February 01, 2021 @02:09PM (#25992279)

Why does Australia allows such a large percentage of it's medias to be owned by a foreigner?

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Re:Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Goog... by zzedd on Monday February 01, 2021 @02:37PM (#25992671)

because 'the foreigner' controls the media. it's a race condition.

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Re:Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Goog... by 908B64B197 on Monday February 01, 2021 @02:14PM (#25992367)

> Europeans are fighting for similar reasons [...] by companies who have failed to pay their taxes again and again.

I get that it's trendy right now for elected non-technical bureaucrats to whine against tech giants. But if they are really avoiding taxes why not simply... charge them for that? Hint: They can't because all the taxation schemes used by these companies are legal. EU bureaucrats could simply write a tax code that makes them illegal but they won't!

All the whining also distracts peoples from asking themselves why European policies failed to grow a healthy growing tech ecosystem like in the US.

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Re:Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Goog... by robin21 on Monday February 01, 2021 @11:27PM (#25997433)

The fact they threaten to pull out because they are going to make a small decrease in profits speaks volumes of their bullying tactics. It’s clearly a case of: we don’t want to set a precedent in other countries.

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Re:Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Goog... by throwaways885 on Monday February 01, 2021 @09:25AM (#25988926)

'Australian concentration camps'?

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Re:Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Goog... by Clewza313 on Monday February 01, 2021 @10:14AM (#25989323)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru_Regional_Processing_Cent...

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Re:Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Goog... by meditative on Monday February 01, 2021 @09:30AM (#25988968)

I assume they're referring to offshore detention.

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