Various news sites seen on Facebook on Feb. 18, 2021 in Melbourne, Australia.
Robert Cianflone | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Key Points
The social media giant on Wednesday said it will no longer allow
publishers and users in Australia to share or view news on its platform.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Facebook’s actions were “as arrogant as they were disappointing.”
“Facebook was wrong. Facebook’s actions were unnecessary. They were
heavy handed and they will damage its reputation here in Australia,”
said Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said at a media briefing on
Thursday
The Australian government has slammed Facebook’s decision to
block users in the country from all news content on its platform — a
move that ended up affecting access to several government sites.
Australia’s
Prime Minister Scott Morrison called Facebook’s move “arrogant” and
“disappointing,” while Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said it was “wrong” and
“unnecessary.”
The social media company on Wednesday announced its
decision to ban Australian users from viewing and sharing news content.
It came ahead of an expected decision by the Australian parliament to
pass a new media bill that will require online platforms like Google and
Facebook to pay news outlets for displaying and linking to their
content.
“Facebook was wrong. Facebook’s actions were unnecessary.
They were heavy-handed and they will damage its reputation here in
Australia,” Frydenberg said at a media briefing on Thursday.
Facebook’s actions to unfriend Australia today, cutting off essential
information services on health and emergency services, were as arrogant
as they were disappointing.
Scott Morrison
Australian Prime Minister
“Their
decision to block Australians’ access to government sites — be they
about support through the pandemic, mental health, emergency services,
the Bureau of Meteorology — were completely unrelated to the media code,
which is yet to pass through the Senate,” he said.
Frydenberg’s comments were later followed by strong criticism from Morrison.
“Facebook’s
actions to unfriend Australia today, cutting off essential information
services on health and emergency services, were as arrogant as they were
disappointing,” Morrison said in a Facebook post.
Australia does not want to see Google or Facebook leave, but they must follow the rules
In
addition to pages run by news outlets, several government-backed
Australian accounts were also wiped clean by Facebook on Thursday
morning. Government pages affected include those providing updates on
the Covid pandemic and bushfire threats.
Facebook’s decision was in
contrast to that of Google. The latter on Wednesday said it has agreed
on a revenue-sharing deal with Australian media conglomerate News Corp,
which owns media outlets including The Wall Street Journal and New York
Post.
Morrison said he would encourage Facebook “to constructively
work with the Australian Government, as Google recently demonstrated in
good faith.”
“We will not be intimidated by BigTech seeking to
pressure our Parliament as it votes on our important News Media
Bargaining Code,” said the prime minister.
Facebook restores government pages
Human
rights advocates also criticized Facebook’s move. Elaine Pearson,
Australia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement posted on
Twitter that the social media giant is restricting important information
such as Covid-19 updates.
“Facebook is severely restricting the flow of information to Australians,” she said.
“This
is an alarming and dangerous turn of events. Cutting off access to
vital information to an entire country in the dead of the night is
unconscionable,” she added.
Facebook said in response to CNBC’s
request for comment that government pages should not be affected by its
latest move in Australia.
“The actions we’re taking are focused on
restricting publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing
Australian and international news content,” a spokesperson said in an
emailed statement.
“As the law does not provide clear guidance on the
definition of news content, we have taken a broad definition in order
to respect the law as drafted. However, we will reverse any Pages that
are inadvertently impacted,” the statement read.
Many of the affected government pages were restored by mid-afternoon.
‘Bad’ PR for Facebook
Facebook’s
“overreach” earlier Thursday that restricted Australians’ access to
non-news pages was a “bad” public relations move, said Tama Leaver, a
professor at Curtin University’s School of Media, Creative Arts and
Social Inquiry.
“I think Facebook has lost the PR battle by enforcing
a ban that’s just simply too wide,” Leaver told CNBC’s “Street Signs
Asia” on Thursday.
“If Facebook was hoping this would remind
Australians how important Facebook is, I think really they’re gonna
remind that Facebook does things without considering the consequences on
its users,” he added.
Facebook has lost the ‘PR battle’ in Australia, says professor
Nevertheless,
the professor said the social media company has raised some legitimate
concerns about the proposed media law in Australia.
“Facebook does
bring a lot of eyeballs to Australian news content, so it has a
legitimate claim that actually, it’s doing more work for Australian news
producers than it should be paying for,” said Leaver.
So, there
should be more debate on the respective value that Facebook and
Australian news producers bring to each other, added Leaver. He
predicted that Facebook will eventually follow in Google’s footsteps in
securing deals with news companies.
