Facebook blocks Australian users and publishers from viewing or sharing news

Meddek · February 17, 2021

So Facebook has followed through with their threat to remove news sites from being viewed and posted onto Facebook in Australia.

I checked local news site ABC Brisbane, ABC News (American one) and The New York Times Facebook page and they are all just blank, I can't see any of their posts or articles. Even using a VPN I am unable to see news content so I assume they are using my Facebook profile location to geo-block any news content.

Meanwhile Google has been making deals with publishers to sign up to their Google News Showcase, including some of the big ones in Australia such as Nine News, Seven West Media and News Corp.

This is all related to a new Media Bargaining Law that the Australian Government is trying to pass which would force Google and Facebook to pay publishers for news posted on their pages.

This makes me feel so uncomfortable and scared that a company has just the power to control what I can and can't see in such a public way before and I will be interested to see the backlash Facebook gets from the public.

Sources

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/18/facebook-to-restrict-australian-users-sharing-news-content

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-18/facebook-to-restrict-sharing-or-viewing-news-in-australia/13166208

LAwLz · February 17, 2021

28 minutes ago, Meddek said:

This makes me feel so uncomfortable and scared that a company has just the power to control what I can and can't see in such a public way before and I will be interested to see the backlash Facebook gets from the public.

I think Facebook is in the right here and doesn't deserve any backlash.

Australia is saying "if you want to serve people news you need to pay us" and Facebook replied with "okay then we won't serve people news".

If you try and tax/add a fee to some business then you can't be surprised if they close the shop.

Besides, with a bit of luck people will stop getting their news from echo chambers on Facebook now that they have removed that feature.

Also, wouldn't it be funny if the news organisations that lobbied for the link fee were harmed because of this? Their argument was that they deserved compensation because facebook and Google were stealing their business. Google's argument was that they actually helped them by driving people to their site.

I mean, if the media isn't happy about this then clearly Google had a point when they said they helped new sites, and if Google and Facebook are helping news sites by linking to their articles why should they pay for it?

Seems to me like news sites are just trying to double dip. They are demanding that Google and Facebook pay them to promote them.

Meddek · February 17, 2021

I was never an advocate for the for the law it was crap and felt like it was just a Newscorp push to get money as the law never included the Australian public news channels (ABC and SBS) not to mention the majority of Australian news is controlled by Newscorp which paywalls all the local papers so using Facebook or Google news to view content didn't work very well to begin with as you would just hit a pay wall.

Google has gone out and made the deals to make it work and they did threaten to pull search out of the country.

Facebook has also blocked the Bureau of Meteorology from showing content which is the Australian Governments weather system for warnings etc.

SolarNova · February 17, 2021

Im of 2 minds here.

On the one hand, 'news media' today is heavily monetized and more crucially, heavily partisan, so its less a public service and more a business of being a sociopolitical influencer. As such i dont really think i can look at it as a 'the 'news' should be available for all' kind of deal.

On the other hand, i also dont like the idea of government interference in these kinds of things.

Kinda hard to make a decision here. i dont like the fact that this would give the already overbearing Mainstream media more revenue, but as expected it has resulted in Facebook just saying 'no' which is good on 3 fronts.

1) the MSM loose influence via facebook social media,

2) MSM loose what would have been extra revenue

3) Facebook looses a source of potential 'ammo' in their sociopolitical agenda.

So ..i think this is a good thing overall.