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Post by Admin on Feb 19, 2021 7:39:58 GMT
Facebook said it will no longer allow publishers and users in Australia to share or view news on its platform. "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 at a media briefing on Thursday. 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. 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.
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Post by Admin on Feb 19, 2021 19:44:16 GMT
Changes to Sharing and Viewing News on Facebook in Australia February 17, 2021 By William Easton, Managing Director, Facebook Australia & New Zealand In response to Australia’s proposed new Media Bargaining law, Facebook will restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content.
The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content. 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.
This discussion has focused on US technology companies and how they benefit from news content on their services. We understand many will ask why the platforms may respond differently. The answer is because our platforms have fundamentally different relationships with news. Google Search is inextricably intertwined with news and publishers do not voluntarily provide their content. On the other hand, publishers willingly choose to post news on Facebook, as it allows them to sell more subscriptions, grow their audiences and increase advertising revenue.
In fact, and as we have made clear to the Australian government for many months, the value exchange between Facebook and publishers runs in favor of the publishers — which is the reverse of what the legislation would require the arbitrator to assume. Last year Facebook generated approximately 5.1 billion free referrals to Australian publishers worth an estimated AU$407 million.
For Facebook, the business gain from news is minimal. News makes up less than 4% 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.
Over the last three years we’ve worked with the Australian Government to find a solution that recognizes the realities of how our services work. We’ve long worked toward rules that would encourage innovation and collaboration between digital platforms and news organisations. Unfortunately this legislation does not do that. Instead it seeks to penalise Facebook for content it didn’t take or ask for.
We were prepared to launch Facebook News in Australia and significantly increase our investments with local publishers, however, we were only prepared to do this with the right rules in place. This legislation sets a precedent where the government decides who enters into these news content agreements, and ultimately, how much the party that already receives value from the free service gets paid. We will now prioritise investments to other countries, as part of our plans to invest in new licensing news programs and experiences.
Others have also raised concern. Independent experts and analysts around the world have consistently outlined problems with the proposed legislation. While the government has made some changes, the proposed law fundamentally fails to understand how our services work.
Unfortunately, this means people and news organisations in Australia are now restricted from posting news links and sharing or viewing Australian and international news content on Facebook. Globally, posting and sharing news links from Australian publishers is also restricted. To do this, we are using a combination of technologies to restrict news content and we will have processes to review any content that was inadvertently removed.
For Australian publishers this means:
They are restricted from sharing or posting any content on Facebook Pages Admins will still be able to access other features from their Facebook Page, including Page insights and Creator Studio We will continue to provide access to all other standard Facebook services, including data tools and CrowdTangle
For international publishers this means:
They can continue to publish news content on Facebook, but links and posts can’t be viewed or shared by Australian audiences
For our Australian community this means:
They cannot view or share Australian or international news content on Facebook or content from Australian and international news Pages
For our international community this means:
They cannot view or share Australian news content on Facebook or content from Australian news Pages The changes affecting news content will not otherwise change Facebook’s products and services in Australia. 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.
We recognise it’s important to connect people to authoritative information and we will continue to promote dedicated information hubs like the COVID-19 Information Centre, that connects Australians with relevant health information. Our commitment to remove harmful misinformation and provide access to credible and timely information will not change. We remain committed to our third-party fact-checking program with Agence France-Presse and Australian Associated Press and will continue to invest to support their important work.
Our global commitment to invest in quality news also has not changed. We recognise that news provides a vitally important role in society and democracy, which is why we recently expanded Facebook News to hundreds of publications in the UK.
We hope that in the future the Australian government will recognise the value we already provide and work with us to strengthen, rather than limit, our partnerships with publishers.
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Post by Admin on Feb 20, 2021 3:50:56 GMT
Unintended consequences It quickly became clear that one effect of the tech giant's move was that in addition to news providers, emergency services were also being blocked. Some Australian government health-department and emergency-services pages found that their Facebook accounts had been affected. They were later restored after Facebook was notified. Welfare groups such as Women's Health Tasmania also faced difficulties. The Women's Health Tazmania Facebook page with "no posts yet" message "We stream physical activity classes through Facebook," says Jo Flanagan, the group's chief executive. "We push public-health-generated Covid updates. "Clients use messages on Facebook to contact us when they don't have phone credit. It was very disruptive." The page is now working again. Will Easton, managing director of Facebook Australia, said: "Pages such as government, public-safety and education pages should not be impacted by this announcement. "We apologise to any pages that were inadvertently impacted." The day after the ban, we checked some of the pages that had faced problems, including a satirical-news site, a women's legal-services page, and a weather-forecasting platform. They had all been reactivated. Facebook says it's working to restore other sites that have also been blocked inadvertently.
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Post by Admin on Feb 20, 2021 20:41:25 GMT
Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said Thursday that Facebook’s actions are imperilling public safety, given that the news ban initially led to the temporary shutdown of Facebook pages run by key government agencies, including a suicide-prevention service and a fire-and-rescue organization. Mr. Guilbeault said Facebook’s move will not deter Canada from moving ahead with legislation early this year that will require social-media platforms to fund news. “I must condemn what Facebook is doing,” he said Thursday during an online news conference. “I think what Facebook is doing in Australia is highly irresponsible and compromises the safety of many Australian people.” Mr. Guilbeault pointed out that he met just last week with his counterparts from Australia, Finland, France and Germany to discuss a common front on news and other issues related to Facebook and Google. He said he expects the coalition will soon grow to about 15 countries. “It was the first ministerial meeting where we jointly started talking about what we want to do together regarding web giants, including fair compensation for media. We believe that there’s real strength in unity on that,” he said. “I’m a bit curious to see what Facebook’s response will be. Is Facebook going to cut ties with Germany, with France, with Canada, with Australia and other countries that will join? At a certain point, Facebook’s position will be completely untenable.” Australia is in the final stages of approving legislation that would require Google and Facebook to reach compensation agreements with registered news publishers for news content that is shared on the platforms. The two companies strongly opposed the legislation as unworkable and Google initially threatened to shut down its Google search engine in the country. In recent days however, Google has announced individual compensation deals with major Australian publishers. On Wednesday, Google announced that it had reached a three-year deal with News Corp., which publishes several news platforms in Australia, including The Australian, news.com.au and Sky News. The deal will compensate the publisher for news that appears on its platforms such as Google News Showcase.
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Post by Admin on Feb 21, 2021 4:15:17 GMT
Standoff with Zuckerberg The standoff comes as Australia promises to press ahead with the landmark legislation, which could set a global precedent as countries like Canada express interest in taking similar action. The Australian law, which would force Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google to reach commercial deals with Australian publishers or face compulsory arbitration, has cleared the lower house of Parliament and is expected to be passed by the Senate within the next week. Simon Milner, Facebook’s director of policy for the Asia-Pacific region, was quoted on Saturday as telling the Sydney Morning Herald the company had three main objections to the legislation. Facebook objects to being barred from discriminating between different news outlets that ask for money, to arbitration models that allow an independent body to select one payment over another, and to the obligation to enter commercial negotiations with Australian media companies, Milner said. Facebook declined to make Milner available to speak with the Reuters news agency. Australia’s legislation is being widely watched overseas. Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said on Thursday his country would adopt the Australian approach as it crafts its own legislation in the coming months. Google, which had initially threatened to close its search engine in Australia, has announced a host of preemptive licensing deals over the past week, including a global agreement with News Corp. Facebook’s move had an immediate impact on traffic to Australian news sites, according to early data from the New York-based analytics firm Chartbeat. Total traffic to the Australian news sites from various platforms fell from the day before the ban by about 13 percent within the country.
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