Australia’s face-off with Facebook continues as negotiations resume
CANBERRA: Facebook is back at the negotiating table, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Saturday after the tech giant this week blocked news on its site in the country.
Facebook’s abrupt decision to stop Australians from sharing news on the site and strip the pages of domestic and foreign news outlets also erased several state government and emergency department accounts, causing widespread anger.
The company has “tentatively friended us again,” Morrison told a news conference in Sydney. “What I’m pleased about it that Facebook is back at the table again.” Facebook has publicly indicated no change in its opposition to a proposed law requiring social media platforms to pay for links to news content.
Australia’s treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Friday he had spoken with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and further talks were expected over the weekend.
The Australian law, which would force Facebook and Google to reach commercial deals with Australian publishers or face compulsory arbitration, has cleared the lower house of parliament and is expected to be passed by the Senate within the next week.
Google fires AI manager
Google has fired a leader of its artificial intelligence ethics team in the fallout from the recent departure of another former employee involved in the same field.
The firing comes a month after Mitchell also vented on Twitter about the handling of her former colleague, Timnit Gebru, who parted ways with Google late last year. Gebru, a Black woman, said she was fired in a dispute over a research paper, while Google said it had accepted her resignation.
Google said Mitchell was fired after an internal investigation concluded she had broken multiple company policies. The violations included the unauthorized removal of confidential company documents and other private information about its employees.