Jack Hudson

SOCIAL media giant Facebook last week made the decision to restrict Australian news services sharing stories on their respective pages ahead of proposed legislation.

The legislation is designed to support Australian public interest journalism following the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s 18-month inquiry which found an imbalance in power between platforms and social media companies.

On Facebook’s ‘About’ page relating to the content changes in Australia, its managing director in Australia and New Zealand William Easton said the proposed law “misunderstands” the relationship between Facebook and its publishers.

“The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content,” he wrote.

“It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter.

“For Facebook, the business gain from news is minimal. News makes up less than 4 per cent of the content people see in their News Feed.

“Journalism is important to a democratic society, which is why we build dedicated, free tools to support news organisations around the world in innovating their content for online audiences.”

Greens spokesperson for media and communications, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young slammed Facebook for its decision to block news content in Australia.

“Facebook has proved this morning they have become far too big, reinforcing the need to regulate this corporate bully,” she said.

“Instead of coming to the negotiating table in good faith and to pay the journalists that create their content, they pulled a major component of their service.

“Facebook constantly makes excuses for why it allows fake news to be spread on their platform yet overnight has blocked real news.

“The platform profits off the spread of hate speech, dangerous conspiracy theories and fake news and has now restricted any possibility of balancing that with the truth.

“Mark Zuckerberg allowed Trump’s dangerous rhetoric to fester on his platform and now all he will be left with in Australia is the likes of Craig Kelly and an increase in the spread of misinformation.

“Facebook needs to grow up. Australia’s democracy isn’t a college dorm room, and playing with public interest journalism isn’t a game.

“Facebook has just confirmed it really is just Fakebook.”

In the midst of Facebook closing off information, public information pages such as CFS, SA Health and the Bureau of Meteorology were also hit, which was later ratified.

Currently, The Bunyip and its sister paper The Murray Pioneer remain affected by the Facebook ban, yet all information can also be found in print or on their
respective websites.