Changes to Sharing and Viewing News on Facebook in Australia

[mountaineer]

Changes to Sharing and Viewing News on Facebook in Australia
February 17, 2021
By William Easton, Managing Director, Facebook Australia & New Zealand

In response to Australia’s proposed new Media Bargaining law, Facebook will restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content.

The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content. It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter. ...

More from Facebook

What this means: Facebook just blocked the sharing of news in Australia. Facebook has also banned the ENTIRE WORLD from getting Australian news content.



More from Tweeter Matt Stoller:

https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1362112785627443202

[mountaineer]

Facebook says users in Australia can no longer view, share news content
By Sheila Dang
Reuters
Posted February 17, 2021 4:29 pm
Updated February 17, 2021 4:31 pm

Facebook Inc will block news content from being read and shared in its news feed in Australia, drawing a line in the sand against a proposed Australian law that would require it and Alphabet Inc’s Google to pay the country’s news publishers for content.

The move, announced in a blog post on Wednesday, represents a divergence in responses among the big tech giants under attack by news publishers, which have blamed the companies for destroying their advertising business.

The Australian federal government has said it plans to put the legislation, which effectively force Google and Facebook to strike deals with media companies or have fees set for them, to a vote in the coming weeks.  ... Reuters via Global News

[mountaineer]

After Its Threats To Australia, It’s Clear We’ve Got To ‘Unfriend’ Facebook
It seems now the only way we can escape Facebook's control and reject its power over us and our society is to expunge it from our lives.
By Helen Raleigh
February 24, 2021

Facebook blocked the entire nation of Australia from sharing news on its platform last week. The social media company argued it took the drastic action in reaction to a disagreement over planned Australian government legislation. Although the company finally restored Australian news pages after a five-day standoff and reaching an agreement, the whole episode is a sobering reminder of the enormous power the company possesses and the degree of harm it could cause with a few simple clicks.

Last summer, the Australian government introduced a draft “news media bargaining code,” which sought to address the “bargaining power imbalances between Australian news media businesses and digital platforms, specifically Google and Facebook.” The government decided such a law was necessary because surveys find more than half of Australians used Facebook as their top source of news.

Facebook and Google’s near-monopoly leaves little room for traditional media to compete. Indeed, along with Google, Facebook controls about 81 cents of every dollar of digital advertising in Australia.  ...

The Federalist