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Australia: ACCC will keep pressure on Google and Facebook

By  |  February 11, 2019

According to a report from the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chairman, Rod Sims says Facebook and Google must shoulder the blame for cuts to thousands of journalism jobs in Australia over the past decade, and that the rise of the digital platforms at the expense of traditional media is not simply a case of “creative destruction.”

“I was getting the response of people saying ‘isn’t this just creative destruction? You know, classic Schumpeter, the way the world works?’” he said in an interview ahead of the speech. “Well… it isn’t. This isn’t just like the car taking over from the horse and buggy, or more recently, Uber taking over from the taxi.”

In December last year, the ACCC released interim findings from its 12-month investigation into the digital platforms, finding that Google and Facebook’s market power is hurting traditional media companies.

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