Critics of Google and Facebook have compared the tech giants’ recent actions to the behaviour of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as the long-running dispute over an Australian media payment law continues. Last month, Google Australia floated the idea of pulling its search service from the country, sparking a hostile response from Independent Senator Rex Patrick, who likened the tech giant’s threat to Beijing’s ongoing trade war with Australia. “I would just like to take you back to the prime minister announcing that Australia would like to see an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19. The Chinese response to that was to threaten our market, to threaten our trade,” Patrick told Google Australia Managing Director Mel Silva during a Senate committee hearing into the Code. “We’ve got a similar situation here where the Australian government is leading on a proposal in relation to the Wild West web,” he said. “Our …