Regulating Chinese and North American Digital Media in Australia: Facebook and WeChat as Case Studies

Abstract

As the Australian government has legislated for a ‘News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code’ to compel Google and Facebook to pay for news content, platform regulation in Australia has prompted a heated discussion worldwide. Questionable business practices have incited issues such as anti-competition behaviour, online harms, disinformation, algorithmic advertising, trade of data, privacy breaches and so on. Consequently, these technology tycoons are re-inscribing industries and societies alike, posing a threat to digital democracy. This chapter examines how Facebook and WeChat are (or should be) regulated in Australia, the current regulatory frameworks, and the overall effectiveness of self-regulation. Through the lenses of comparative research, this study is focused on infrastructuralization, techno-nationalism (censorship), and civil society (media diversity), to identify distinct features and common themes in platform regulation and explore possible solutions to regulating global platforms in Australia.