The Finance Minister has given assurances the federal government has not kowtowed to Facebook during negotiations on the news media bargaining code.

Simon Birmingham told Jim Wilson the government has agreed to “very technical amendments to the legislation”.

“The absolute heart of what we had proposed remains firmly intact, and we expect this will see Facebook have to go through the type of processes that Google has gone through.

“Facebook can describe their actions themselves.”

In simple terms, the code will now not be applied to Facebook provided they reach independent commercial agreements with publishers, he explained.

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