Facebook banned its own page and prevented Australian news sites from posting while also stopping Australian users from sharing or viewing content from news outlets. The social media giant steps up its fight against the federal government’s proposed news media code.
Facebook ban also temporarily put the country at a standstill as users were barred access to pages of Meteorology Bureau, state health departments, unions, several political leaders, hospitals and charities for several hours
All Australian news organisations are no longer able to post content to their Facebook pages and people based in Australia are not be able to link to news articles from either Australian or international news sites. The move also impacted the Facebook pages of fire, health and meteorological services around Australia.
Pages of state health departments- SA Health and Queensland Health- were also banned from posting their updates on COVID-19 vaccination drive. Speaking to reporters, Health Minister Greg Hunt said he was “profoundly shocked” that health organisations, including Bowel Cancer Australia and the Kids Cancer Project, had been affected. Calling it a “disgrace”, he urged Facebook to fix it at the earliest.
The ban also hit emergency services. This has happened, because Facebook would be subject to the proposed code – and be required to pay publishers –if “news content” was posted on its website. It could be hit with penalties if, while it is subject to the code, it allowed news content from some publishers not part of the code while blocking others.
This means Facebook would not be able to just block Australian publishers who are participating in the code but would need to block all news content from Facebook. The social media behemoth is now attempting to show how that would work in practice.
