On Wednesday, Meta, TikTok, and Google testified in the Indonesian parliament in opposition to a new copyright bill. The proposed law would require digital platforms to pay news publishers in Indonesia for aggregating and previewing their content, according to a new report from Reuters.
Any compensation would be paid through a state-run management organization, which would then distribute the funds to publishers. Platforms that don’t comply could face sanctions, including the loss of their local business permits.
If the bill does pass, Indonesia would become the first country in Southeast Asia to formally fold AI into its copyright law.
Social media and search engine companies have come out in force against the bill, with Google leading the campaign.
Indonesia is a massive market for global digital platforms with roughly 230 million internet users. In 2023, Indonesia had the fifth-most Google users of any country in the world, with traffic reaching 4.42 billion searches.
On Wednesday, a Google official argued that the bill would limit access to news, according to Reuters.
Berni Moestafa, Meta’s head of public policy in Indonesia, testified that if the bill is passed “publishers could lose readership traffic as well as potential advertising and subscription revenue.”
Back in 2023, Canada passed the Online News Act, its own, albeit narrower law which required platforms like Google and Meta to pay publishers for sharing or linking to their content. Meta responded by blocking news links on Facebook and Instagram in Canada altogether.
