2026 off to a flying start

Hello all – and a belated Happy New Year. CMT hopes the year has begun gently for you all and that you’ll be as interested and eager to read our fortnightly newsletter in 2026 as you have been in years gone by. 
 
This newsletter, as we debate moves to introduce new hate speech laws and as allegations of censorship, particularly around the Gaza/Israel war, continue to swirl on social media, Michael Davis is taking a look at a European Commission decision to fine X for violating the Digital Services Act in December, 2025. The decision has been largely analysed as the enforcement of 'sweeping laws targeting misinformation' and censorship. But as Michael writes, that's not what the fine was imposed for. 
 
Derek Wilding gives us a glimpse into CMT’s latest report – Funding the Way Forward for Australian News – which is looking at what happens if the federal government manages to  pass its proposed News Bargaining Incentive scheme which would give digital platforms a tax benefit for financial contributions to the news industry but impose a tax liability on those who don’t meet minimum investment levels. Given comments this past week by Prime Minister Albanese that platforms must pay their way when they use news produced at enormous cost by news outlets, it’s a good time to be asking how would the money generated by a tax actually be distributed.
 
And Sacha Molitorisz previews the second Jill McKeough lecture from UTS Law Professor, David Lindsay which will examine the policy impasse on copyright law and policy, resulting from the advent of generative AI; how we can balance Generative AI and human creativity? 
 
Finally – we’re bringing you a keynote address delivered by ABC Chair Kim Williams at a forum we held at the end of 2025, on generative AI and public interest journalism. This followed the publication of CMT’s second report surveying how generative AI has progressed in usage in newsrooms from a cautious ‘test and learn’ approach to one where newsrooms are more adventurous, and more active in building editorial guardrails around how the technology is used. 

Kim shared his views on why we should stop treating tech moguls with kid gloves when it comes to technologies like generative AI which have tremendous capacity to disrupt knowledge producing industries, amongst them journalism. At the same CMT forum, former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Rod Sims, who designed the now flailing News Media Bargaining Code, noted that the impending News Bargaining Incentive scheme should proceed with or without AI companies included. Recently he said: “It is important for policymakers to keep top of mind that platforms don’t produce anything. They take from those who do and use it to benefit their systems. Google cannot exist without media content; you can’t have a search that doesn’t rely on media content. The same applies to AI. OpenAI is using people’s content, essentially without payment, to benefit its own service. That’s just not sustainable for media businesses. These generative AI companies should be captured by news bargaining codes.” 

The Washington based National Foreign Trade Council in its submission to Treasury on the News Bargaining Incentive scheme, says its members which include Google and Meta think that the proposal to make them pay for news content could breach Australia’s free trade deal with the United States.  For the moment, with complex political issues – like US tariffs - in the air, it's fair to say Meta’s Australian revenue looks safe: $1.46 billion last year. Google, which has renewed some contracts under the News Media Bargaining Code that Meta walked away from, is also looking not-too-shabby: $1.98 billion in revenue. In the spirit of beginning 2026 gently, we won’t tell you what Meta and Google paid in tax. But you can see that here.

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