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Gold Coast groups, crucial health services blindsided by social media giant’s move to ‘unfriend Australia’
GOLD Coasters have expressed outrage over social media giant Facebook’s decision to block news organisations from sharing their content, with many sites including DV support services such as Rize-Up, health organisations, Destination Gold Coast and even the weather bureau blindsided by the move.
GOLD Coast political leaders blasted social media giant Facebook for its “disastrous” decision to block news organisations from sharing their content.
Major media organisations such as the Gold Coast Bulletin, peak tourism body Destination Gold Coast, Bond University and a range of community groups had their content purged in response to the federal government's proposed media bargaining code.
The Bureau of Meteorology and Queensland Health’s pages were wiped on Thursday morning but restored hours later after lobbying by the state government.
Southport-based Labor Senator Murray Watt blasted Facebook for its decision.
“This has been a disastrous outcome for Gold Coasters, who have woken up without access to crucial public information,” he said.
“This is a developing situation, but the consequences have been felt far and wide.
“Facebook has become an important tool to share important health, safety and marketing information. It’s absurd that in the middle of a pandemic, when people want information on COVID vaccine rollouts or local domestic violence services, we see official health and safety information removed.
“Gold Coast tourism is under enough pressure without Destination GC’s page being taken down.”
Mr Watt called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to step in to resolve the issue.
Gold Coast Health, RACQ, Energex, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland, the Domestic Violence Prevention Centre and TransLink were just some of the many pages left inaccessible on Thursday.
Mayor Tom Tate said he was “deeply concerned” that Gold Coasters would lose access to critical sources of local information.
“During times of disaster (council) uses all sorts of social media platforms and (the prospect for) that to be turned off, I would say to Facebook, make sure anything with disaster management is quarantined with the lock out,” he said.
Facebook’s decision has been widely condemned across the political spectrum, with fears it will directly affect the rollout of the first COVID vaccines, which will begin on the Gold Coast on Monday.
State Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman declared the move to be “incredibly outrageous” given the ongoing pandemic.
Facebook’s ban on viewing or sharing local news content came just hours after News Corp reached a three-year deal with Google to provide compensation for Australian journalism to appear on its Google News Showcase.
Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg spoke to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg by phone for half an hour on Thursday morning and urged him to resume talks with Canberra.
“With respect to Facebook, they’ve made their actions pretty plain today,” he said.
“We’ll see if we can reach some clarifications and get them back to the table and keep them providing their service here in Australia. But our commitment, our number one commitment, is to legislate this code.”
Moncrieff MP Angie Bell urged Gold Coasters to find other sources of information away from Facebook.
“Many of the community news sites being blocked by Facebook are not actually subject to the News Media Bargaining Code,” she said.
“Facebook must comply with the laws passed by the democratically elected parliament of Australia.
“Gold Coasters can still find and access all the sites blocked by Facebook via search with Google, Bing and Duck Duck Go.”