Li Huairen, Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs, accepted an exclusive interview with this newspaper's "What's the matter with me?"

(Photo by reporter Yu Anting)

[Reporter Xu Ziling/Report from Taipei] The digital advertising market is monopolized. The first round of negotiations between my country's news industry and Google and Meta ended at the end of last year. The outside world is concerned about the next move.

Li Huairen, Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs of the Ministry of Digital Affairs, revealed in an exclusive interview with the newspaper "What's the matter with me", that the two parties will definitely have opportunities for dialogue in the future, and Google has proposed a specific plan, but it involves commercial secrets and cannot be made public. I hope Google can explain it to the public as soon as possible.

With calls from all walks of life for the government to intervene, the news industry and cross-border digital platforms have finally made progress in bargaining. The Digital Department held the first round of negotiation meetings in December last year, inviting news media associations to hold talks with digital platforms Google and Meta respectively.

Li Huairen emphasized that this is the first round of meetings, "there will definitely be opportunities for dialogue in the future."

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With the intervention of governments around the world, there are precedents for Google and Meta to pay media abroad, and different countries have developed different models.

Li Huairen pointed out that Australia's "Media Bargaining Law" is currently at the forefront, while the European Union has the concept of "neighboring rights of copyright". to be negotiated by both parties.

Li Huairen said that after the European Union issued the "Neighboring Rights of Copyrights" directive, it was handed over to countries to return to their domestic laws for implementation, so there were different results when they returned to each country. For example, in France, it successfully promoted payment on digital platforms; but in the Czech Republic, Google reacted fiercely. It even decided to turn off the news preview function.

He believes that this involves the size of the market, as well as the roles of both parties and the government.

"Therefore, the Ministry of Digital Affairs gives priority to dialogue. We emphasize that legislation will never be ruled out, but before legislation, there are many things that can be reached through dialogue." Li Huairen mentioned that Google actually proposed "specific plans" in the first round of negotiations, but Due to the inconvenience of disclosing commercial secrets, the two parties are already in communication and hope that in the near future, Google can make it clear to the outside world.

In the first round of negotiations, although the media associations hoped that the government would legislate, their directions differed. For example, the print media called for the adoption of the Australian Bargaining Law model, while the TV media proposed to levy a "digital tax" on digital platforms.

Li Huairen believes that each has its own advantages, but he also admitted that there are still many opinions on digital tax in Taiwan, and the community needs to reach a consensus.

As for the Australian bargaining law model, Li Huairen said bluntly that one of the important pillars to promote the Australian bargaining law is the "guild" of the media; that is to say, the government can play a supporting role in this issue, but some propositions cannot be put forward by the government for the journalism industry. "So there has to be a consensus on what assistance journalism needs."

The outside world believes that Meta was relatively passive in the first round of negotiations. Li Huairen emphasized that the government supports "news has a price." If digital platforms use news content, they should also accept the concept of price. The digital department will continue to communicate with each digital platform.