#DeleteFacebook
British MPs join backlash against tech ‘bully’ after it blocks news in Australia
FACEBOOK was accused of acting like a ‘school yard bully’ after it imposed a news blackout in Australia.
Prime minister Scott Morrison warned its founder Mark Zuckerberg that neither he nor his country would be intimidated after the firm blocked access to local and global media pages in a row about paying for news.
British MPs joined a chorus of global criticism that saw a #deleteFacebook campaign surge across the internet yesterday. Julian Knight, chairman of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said tech giants should be ‘brought to heel’ and there was a case for forcing Facebook to pay for news in Britain too.
Key pandemic health pages were suddenly unavailable on the site after they became collateral damage in the dispute, as were those of children’s and women’s charities and even the World
Wildlife Fund. A furious Mr Morrison said the move showed ‘arrogant’ tech firms ‘think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them’. Others branded it ‘an assault on a sovereign nation’.
Facebook blocked its 17 million Australian users from sharing news or accessing pages in an act of retaliation against legislation to make it, and the likes of Google, pay for journalism.
Those searching Facebook for news yesterday were instead shown notifications saying ‘no posts’ were available. Attempting to share news links brought up a message saying ‘this post can’t be shared’.
The battle is being watched closely in Europe and the UK, where officials are drafting sweeping new digital regulations. Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, the British inventor of the World Wide Web, has said the Australian plans could render the internet as we know it unworkable.
Digital platforms fear that what is happening in Australia will become an expensive precedent that larger countries will follow.
But Facebook was blasted by, among others, the UK’s News Media Association, whose chairman Henry Faure Walker said it was ‘a classic example of a monopoly power being the school yard bully, trying to protect its dominant position with scant regard for the citizens and customers it supposedly serves’.
He added: ‘Facebook’s actions in Australia demonstrate precisely
‘An assault on a sovereign nation’
why we need jurisdictions across the globe, including the UK, to coordinate to deliver robust regulation to create a truly level playing between the tech giants and news publishers.’
Mr Knight, Tory MP for Solihull, said a suggestion that tech giants had grown ‘too big for their boots’ was ‘the understatement of the century’. He added: ‘What they’re doing is the equivalent of taking their ball home when it comes to acting against a government’s legislation in this way.
‘It throws a whole idea of Facebook cooperating with legislators around the globe out of the window. 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 because basically they are the super companies of today.
‘If you gain value from carrying trusted sources of information, then sell advertising off the back of that value, you should pay for it. It seems to be pretty logical.
‘This bully boy action that they’ve undertaken will, I think, ignite a desire to go further amongst legislators around the world.’ Mr Knight added: ‘It’s Australia first, who will be next?’
Amnesty International said: ‘Facebook’s willingness to block credible news sources stands in sharp distinction to the company’s poor track record in addressing the spread of hateful content.’
Will Easton, Facebook’s Australian and New Zealand managing director, said the company had faced a stark choice of ‘attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship (with media groups), or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia’.
He added: ‘With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter.’
The firm said it would unblock pages that had been ‘inadvertently’ caught in the crossfire.