If you’re reading this, Australia’s democracy is under attack.

The Australian Government has proposed legislation which, if enacted, will enable large news publishers to effectively suppress any and all content they disagree with.

The bill is called the “News Media Bargaining Code” — and it must be stopped immediately.

Sign our petition and we will send a signed copy of the below letter on your behalf — once a week, every week — to each member of the Australian Senate, House of Representatives, and ACCC, until this proposed bill is dead in its entirety.

(And if you want to go above and beyond, click HERE to automatically compose an email to each of Australia's Senators & ACCC Commissioners right now!)

+++++++++++++++++++

Dear Member of Parliament:

I am writing this letter to voice my opposition to the egregiously dangerous legislation detailed in the proposed “News Media Bargaining Code”.

As it stands, this proposed bill is an assault on Australia’s democracy.

If online platforms like YouTube and Google are legally mandated to disclose the inner workings of their systems to large news publishers, then Parliament would effectively be enabling these large news publishers to unfairly rank their content at the top of the YouTube and Google search results.

As a direct result, large news corporations would effectively be able to suppress articles, videos, opinions, ideas, and all other online content they disagree with (like videos from YouTube creators, for example).

If that wasn’t dangerous enough, the proposed law also jeopardizes the privacy rights of YouTube viewers by requiring that YouTube hand-over vast amounts of private user-data to these large news companies.

For the sake of Australia’s democracy, I plead that you use the awesome power invested in you to vote against this proposed bill in its entirety.

Thank you in advance for your prompt attention to this matter.

+++++++++++++++++++

== Resources ==

Google's Open Letter

The official release from AU Treasury

ACCC News Media Bargaining Code information

Proposed "News Media Bargaining Code" bill