This may not kill the large newspapers, but surely it will destroy the local newspapers. When does a tech blog become news? Can you even share anything on the internet through Facebook?
They're keeping some kind of digital version but let go basically all the local reporters, photographers, etc. and closed all the local offices, and I think just run all the remaining online versions out of just a handful of locations now.
1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-28/news-corp-makes-regio...
Tbh I think FB's comment here is too binary. It seems to me they're implying that news needs to either be free, or they will get charged "unlimited amount". I'm sure other industries have faced a similar issue (e.g. music?) and have implemented a workable solution that benefits both parties (the aggregators and the creators).
If you look at the bill, bits of it are actually fairly carefully designed to work around the inconvenient truth that they aren't really directly profiting, and it actually makes other things (like whether the amount the publishers are asking for would be too damaging to Google/Facebook's finances) as big a consideration (or more!) than what the actual benefit Google/Facebook are getting!
The thing is, if this was just a new related right, like the EU Copyright Directive, we'd see the market play out as usual. News corporations would realize that Google and Facebook actually are paying them in valuable exposure, and sign away their aggregation rights for free or little cost to the aggregators. Australia appears to be trying to do an end run around that by taking away as many negotiating options from Google as possible. Effectively, there's one massive news collection society and anyone who carries news at all, regardless of who it's from, has to play ball with them. They also are legally required to get what is effectively most-favored-nation status. This is such an oddball way of doing things that I see this either crashing and burning so hard that the courts have to bail out Australian Parliament, or it works perfectly, becomes the new model regime for funding news, and winds up in the next set of WTO treaties (whenever those come around).