■ FACEBOOK REVERSES ITS BAN ON NEWS DOWN UNDER
FACEBOOK announced it will restore news content to its users in Australia as boss Mark Zuckerberg was warned the ‘eyes of the world’ were watching him.
The tech giant had pulled the plug after laws were drafted to make it pay the media firms whose journalists provide much of the material shared by users.
But a deal has been reached to reverse the ban, which was seen as a warning shot to countries including Britain which are looking to exert more control over powerful digital platforms.
Facebook said it would be free to choose which publishers it supports – including small and local ones – under an amended version of the news media bargaining code that Google had also opposed.
Australia’s federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg said: ‘There is no doubt Australia has been a proxy battle for the world.
‘Facebook and Google have not hidden the fact that they know the eyes of the world are on Australia, and that is why they have sought to get a code here that is workable.’
He described the agreed amendments as ‘clarifications’ of the government’s intent – admitting that negotiations with Mr Zuckerberg were ‘difficult’.
Facebook’s vice president for news partnerships, Campbell Brown, said: ‘We’re restoring news on Facebook in Australia in the coming days.
‘Going forward, the government has clarified we will retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook, so that we won’t automatically be subject to a forced negotiation.’
The news media bargaining code was designed to curb the dominance of the tech giants in their negotiations with news providers. Google had also threatened to remove its search functions from Australia over the code, but that threat has faded.