David Farrar: Scheme to levy fees on search engines and social media sites

How annoyed would NZers be if NZ news media were no longer findable on search engines and social media?

Readers will be aware that the Government’s Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill has seen both Meta and Google warn that rather than pay a levy under the proposed law for links to news stories, they would block NZ news stories from Google and Facebook.

Curia was asked to poll 1,000 New Zealanders on:

The government is considering a scheme to levy fees on search engines and social media sites, that display links to NZ news stories. In response sites such as Google and Facebook may stop showing you NZ news stories. How annoyed would you be if you could no longer find NZ news stories through search engines or social media sites?

The full results are at Curia.

So 65% of respondents said they would be very or somewhat annoyed if they could no longer find NZ news stories through search engines or social media sites.

There is quite a bit of variation by demographics. The percentage who said they would be very or somewhat annoyed by demographics was:

• Under 40s 75%
• Green voters 70%
• Women 69%
• Labour voters 69%
• NZ First voters 67%
• 40 – 59s 64%
• National voters 62%
• Men 60%
• ACT voters 57%
• Overs 60s 52%

It is interesting that it started life as a Labour bill and now is a National bill, yet Labour and National voters will be considerably upset if it passes and causes them to lose access to NZ news sites via social media and search engines.

Of course there is a chance Google and Meta are bluffing, and won’t block news access. We may find out, if the Government proceeds. I personally wouldn’t bet that they are bluffing.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.