Facebook To Stop People Viewing, Sharing News in Australia

By Staff, Agencies 

Facebook announced that it will stop allowing people in Australia to read or share news content on the platform.

The decision comes in response to the country’s proposed Media Bargaining law, which requires technology companies such as Facebook and Google to negotiate with news outlets to feature their content.

Facebook had initially threatened to pull news content in August, relatively early in discussions about the new law. The decision to act on that threat comes as the legislation is set to be debated in parliament ahead of being voted into law.

Australian publishers will now be banned from sharing or posting content on their Facebook pages. International news organizations will still be able to publish news as normal, but those stories will not be able to be viewed or shared by users in Australia. Readers in Australia will not be able to access any news content from anywhere, and international readers will not be able to access Australian news content.

Facebook was clear that the changes will only affect news content and pages in Australia, and that the rest of its other products and services will not otherwise change. “We want to assure the millions of Australians using Facebook to connect with friends and family, grow their businesses and join Groups to help support their local communities, that these services will not change,” Facebook said.

Lawmakers say the new rules are required to “protect public interest journalism” by ensuring that media outlets are paid for the content that social media and search engine users read and share.

But Google and Facebook and have vociferously opposed the introduction of the new rule, arguing that it is based on a misunderstanding of the relationship between the technology companies and news outlets.

In recent days, Google has softened its stance somewhat, signing up a range of media organizations to a new licensing program that will see new deals signed with those news outlets.

But Facebook said that it would not be able to co-operate with the new rule.

In other countries, including the UK, the company has launched Facebook News, which includes commercial deals with publishers. Facebook said it had been prepared to launch that program in Australia “and significantly increase our investments with local publishers, however, we were only prepared to do this with the right rules in place”, it said – but it would not do so under the new legislation, which will require governmental involvement in those deals.