Speaking at an event commemorating National Press Day on Thursday, Jokowi said the news industry “was not doing so well”.

“Big Tech’s algorithms tend to be concerned only with the commercial side of things and will push sensational and petty content that sacrifices the quality of authentic journalism. This should not dominate the life of our society,” the President said in his speech.

He said the government was drafting a regulation that would require digital platforms to pay the media outlets whose content they carried, noting that 60 percent of the country’s advertisement market was “dominated mainly by foreign digital platforms”.

The proposed regulation seeks to address publishers’ longstanding complaint that they are losing revenue to online aggregators. Tech giants, they say, benefit from the use of news content in search results and other features without paying for it.

Two separate drafts of the regulation are being discussed, one prepared by the Communications and Information Ministry and the other by members of the Press Council and other media associations, Jokowi noted.

“My suggestion is [that stakeholders should] convene this month. This presidential regulation must be finalized within a month at the latest, and I will be joining some of the discussions,” he said.

‘Watered down’

Muhamad Agung Dharmajaya, deputy chairman of the Press Council, said the government’s latest draft was “too simplified” and that negotiations between publishers and tech companies needed “a clearer legal umbrella”.

The cooperation between publishers and Big Tech outlined in the seven-page ministry draft seen by The Jakarta Post consisted only of “agreements on remuneration or other forms” of compensation.

That provision differs from the Press Council proposal, which stipulates sharing of advertising revenue and algorithm transparency, among other reforms.

Negotiations between news outlets and tech giants, according to the government draft, would be mediated by the council, although no specific mechanism was outlined.

The Press Council draft, meanwhile, states that tech companies may first make a blanket initial price offering to all news publishers. If the publishers reject the offer, the tech platforms are required to negotiate fees with individual publishers under the supervision of an executive-branch body that would be established to oversee negotiations.

“We still have one month to negotiate. We hope that we can accommodate the points in our proposal and the one drafted by the communications ministry,” Agung told the Post.

The Press Council has asked for the meeting with the government and tech companies to take place early next week, whether formally or informally, to “keep ahead of the deadline”.

“We will set realistic expectations at the negotiation table, and we hope that the regulation will be able to accommodate all the stakeholders involved,” Agung said.

Australia was the first country in the world to introduce laws requiring tech platforms to negotiate payments with local media, following a legal battle between Alphabet’s Google and the country’s consumer regulator.

More than 30 compensation deals between Australian news outlets and large social media firms have since been made, according to a report by the Australian Treasury Department published in December 2022.

The Australian system has been watched globally as other countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, consider introducing similar legislation to try to reset the balance between media companies and technology titans. (tjs)

— Vincent Fabian Thomas contributed to this report.

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