Australia News Ban Was A Tactic For Facebook

Facebook purposefully blocked all news from being posted on its platform in Australia last year, which would cause collateral damage. By doing this, it engaged in a criminal conspiracy to get favourable treatment.

Facebook initially banned Australian news articles from its function in protest. The ban was poorly executed and blocked government organizations and nonprofits.

Facebook stated that 17,000 pages in the first instance of blocking should have been unblocked.

Facebook retaliated as Australian lawmakers progressed to vote on the proposed data security law. Facebook started removing these pages ahead of the Senate’s final votes, after the House of Representatives passed the first version of the proposed bill.

Facebook has admitted to taking an extremely broad definition of news content in light of unclear guidance, and the law. Records obtained by the WSJ give more evidence that this was the case; in an internal log it is stated “we are responding to [suggestions from lawmakers in] Australia which is very broad and directions from the legal and policy team have been to be over inclusive and refine as we get more information.”

The company classified news websites as publishers if they used 60% of their content to distribute news. If the excluded education and government domains, it would not have been able to institute the ban.

Facebook attempted to go around the block by creating a system with safeguards. However, it did not work. Facebook also created a list of news organizations that were banned because of the block and did not use any other approaches or protect important pages.

Facebook praised the company’s ability to create a new high-standard in social media response. The quickness of execution and strong principles demonstrated by the team established a benchmark that is unlikely to be matched.

The statement ends by saying that any allegations relating to the matter are false.

Facebook had protested due to their frustration of a law that passed. Facebook’s concern was that certain amendments needed to be included in order for the Australian government to designate them as an online platform under the new law, and have them arbitrate with other companies. There hasn’t been any change made to legislation concerning Facebook or Google so far, over a year after the bill passed.