Facebook ‘unfriends’ Australia
Social media giant blocks all media as row over paid content escalates
SYDNEY: Australians woke to empty news feeds on their Facebook Inc pages after the social media giant blocked all media content in a surprise and dramatic escalation of a dispute with the government over paying for content.
The move was swiftly criticised by news producers, politicians and human rights advocates, particularly as it became clear that official health pages, emergency safety warnings and welfare networks had all been scrubbed from the site along with news.
“Facebook’s actions to unfriend Australia today, cutting off essential information services on health and emergency services, were as arrogant as they were disappointing,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison wrote on his own Facebook page, using the vernacular for cutting ties with another person on the site.
“These actions will only confirm the concerns that an increasing number of countries are expressing about the behaviour of Big Tech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them.”
Facebook’s move represents a split from Alphabet Inc-owned Google after they joined together for years to campaign against the laws. Both had threatened to cancel services in Australia, but Google has instead sealed preemptive deals with several outlets.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp was the latest to announce a deal in which it will receive “significant payments” from Google in return for providing content for the search engine’s News Showcase account.
The Australian law would require Facebook and Google to reach commercial deals with news outlets whose links drive traffic to their platforms, or be subjected to forced arbitration to agree a price.
Facebook said in its statement that the law, which is expected to be passed by parliament within days, “misunderstands” the relationship between itself and publishers and it faced a stark choice of complying or banning news content.
Lisa Davies, editor of The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, owned by Nine Entertainment Co. Ltd, tweeted: “Facebook has exponentially increased the opportunity for misinformation, dangerous radicalism and conspiracy theories to abound on its platform.”
Several critical government agencies – tasked with issuing emergency Covid-19, bushfire, flood and cyclone advice – were initially caught up in the news ban before Facebook began restoring them.
An assortment of other Australian pages were also rendered blank, including cancer and homelessness charities, major businesses and even popular satire accounts.
But unaffected by the blackout were a series of pages owned by purveyors of fake news and conspiracy theories – despite their frequently posting about current events.
Among them were several pages identified by AFP’s fact-checking team as false claims that circulate to tens of thousands of users.
The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance said the professional journalists it represents acted as a check on the spread of misinformation before their work was barred from Facebook feeds.
“By restricting independent, professionally produced news in Australia, Facebook is allowing the promotion of conspiracy theories, misinformation, fake news and QAnon crackpots on its platform,” representative Marcus Strom said.
“This irresponsible move by Facebook will encourage the dissemination of fake news, which is particularly dangerous during the pandemic and is a betrayal of its Australian audiences.”