It transpired last week that Google had been "experimenting" with burying Australian news content on its popular search engine.

That is to say, it is deliberately hiding some of Australia's only solid, fact-checked news sources, and replacing it with older or less relevant content.

This, at a time when we are co-existing with an unprecedented glut of misinformation that is spreading, unchecked, and adversely affecting some of the world's strongest democracies.

The purpose, of course, is to emphasise the crucial role Google plays in our daily media consumption.

This is not a point that needs to be driven home in any way.

READ MORE:

In fact, it is precisely because of Google's pervasive influence that the Australian government is asking it to pay for the news that drives its reach.

It's no stretch to say Australian print media's steady decline in advertising revenue over the years has been due in large part to to the siphoning off of such revenue by Google and Facebook, among others.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg himself hit back at Google over its experiment, telling the tech giant to focus on paying for it instead.

"The digital giants should focus on paying for original content, not blocking it," he said.

Google says the the proposed news media bargaining code, which would require Google to negotiate a fair price for news content with eligible Australian outlets, which is being examined by a Senate committee before a vote in parliament early this year, will damage its business.

Under the code, Google and Facebook would be subject to mandatory price arbitration if a commercial agreement on payment for Australian media could not be reached.

To demonstrate its displeasure and its influence, Google has gone ahead and damaged its business all by itself - as a way, perhaps, of proving we need it more than it needs us.

Again, this is hardly a revelation and hardly a thing to admire or marvel upon.

It is also spectacularly poorly timed, in the middle of a pandemic, no less, when societies' need for accurate information is as acute as ever.

Meanwhile, over in the US, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have all banned Donald Trump from their platforms for his actions earlier this month that led to a riot in the Capitol.

When the world's largest technology giants are taking action, albeit belated, against the relentless and harmful churn of misinformation online, it's not the time to start messing with algorithms and highlighting our reliance on an overseas-based information provider.

Google, a provider that holds disproportionate sway over how and when we access information, wants everyone to know it calls the shots, no matter how civil we try to keep the debate around misinformation.

Twitter et al have demonstrated how they can belatedly use their might for good, to help combat the disease of misinformation that is having such a disproportionate influence on otherwise solid democracies like America.

For Google to simultaneously flex its muscles and show the consequences of its displeasure is, in many ways, merely driving home the need for the power imbalance to be addressed.