Bullying tactics will only backfire

Globe’s Facebook fury

FACEBOOK has been accused of using “bullyboy tactics” and not being “compatible with democracy” by politicians around the globe, who warned the social media giant’s decision to ban Australian news outlets would backfire on it.

It comes as Health Minister Greg Hunt confirmed on Sunday the federal government would not pay Facebook to advertise the new COVID jab after the company blocked health and emergency services information last week in response to the proposed news media bargaining code.

David Cicilline, a US congressman, said: “Facebook is not compatible with democracy. Threatening to bring an entire country to its knees to agree to Facebook’s terms is the ultimate admission of monopoly power.”

And UK politician Julian Knight told The Times that Facebook’s “bullyboy tactics” would ultimately backfire on it.

“This action, this bullyboy action, that they’ve undertaken in Australia will, I think, ignite a desire to go further amongst legislators around the world,” Mr Knight said.

“We represent people and I’m sorry but you can’t run a bulldozer over that. And if Facebook thinks it’ll do that, it will face the same long-term ire as the likes of big oil and tobacco.”

It appears Facebook also mistook an Aussie comedy site for real news and blocked posts on the page of Double Bay Today, which describes itself as a “satirical news publication”.

Speaking on the ABC, Mr Hunt confirmed there would be no additional government paid advertising promoting the vaccine on Facebook as long as the US-based company continued to block Australian news and information pages.

Mr Hunt said he had spoken to his office after the ban came into effect last Thursday and also said he would be in touch with the Health Department in regard to paid advertising on Facebook.

“I spoke to my office to make sure that we were not doing that, I will check that my department is not but, on my watch, until this issue is resolved, there will not be Facebook advertising,” Mr Hunt said. “I’ve got to say, basically you have corporate titans acting as sovereign bullies and they won’t get away with it. We will stand up as a country, but other countries will (as well)”.

Mr Hunt later clarified saying: “We will continue to provide information (to Australians via Facebook) but what we wouldn’t do in the immediate future is additional paid advertising.”