FACEBOOK MAY BLOCK AUSTRALIANS FROM SHARING NEWS ARTICLES
Big Tech mulls further restricting flow of information
After the Australian government said digital giants should compensate media houses for using their stories, Facebook has issued an unprecedented threat that it may ban the country’s users from sharing news stories on its platforms.
“Assuming this draft code becomes law, we will reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news on Facebook and Instagram,” said Facebook’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, Will Easton, in a blog post.
He also added that the proposed law required the company to choose between “either removing news entirely or accepting a system that lets publishers charge us for as much content as they want at a price with no clear limits.”
“No business can operate that way,” he said.
Australia is planning to enforce some of the strictest limitations on the powers of digital giants like Facebook and Google, which would require the companies to pay for the content they use from local news outlets. The aim is to bring in more transparency into how the platforms use their algorithms to rank content.