Facebook is blocking all news in Australia to send a warning message to the world.
This drama is all because Facebook is not happy with upcoming legislation being proposed in Australia.
It's called the news media bargaining code and it would require Facebook To pay news publishers for news content Australian see in their feed, but the proposed law isn't just targeting Facebook.
It also applies to Google.
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Basically Australian lawmakers are saying, hey, Facebook, Google, you depend on our news websites and our local newspapers and our TV stations to give you content So share some of your ad revenue with the content creators.
It's getting big tick outlets to pay for the work of these journalists that fuel Facebook and Google.
But instead of paying, Facebook just unfriended all of Australia.
To protest the legislation, on February 17th, that would be early Thursday morning for the land down under, Facebook users worldwide cannot view or share Australian news content on Facebook or content from Australian news pages.
So as you can imagine, this has just been a mess.
In the midst of Facebook making a big stink to push back it also accidentally blocked some government pages including two official health agencies.
Which had important news to share about the pandemic that we are in right now.
And it means people can't get news on Facebook at a time when we need to get the word out about vaccines and other important COVID-19 health updates.
If there's no trusted news sources, well then you better hope false info doesn't start spreading in your Facebook feed because there may be no news links To help debunk it.
In a statement, Facebook seemed to recognise that this would be an issue.
It said it would keep updates flowing to the COVID-19 Information Centre.
That's a hub for Australian health information, and it would keep working to remove harmful misinformation.
Facebook is playing hardball because other governments around the world are looking closely at this to implement similar laws.
To clamp down on big tech, you see a member of the European Parliament told CNET he wants to introduce a similar measure to upcoming EU legislations.
And a Canadian minister said Canada should follow this example and make big tech pay publishers.
Now it's not clear if government making Facebook pay publishers would help the media industry in a big way.
Some wonder if this fight is gonna hurt smaller publishers.
Facebook also said in a statement that news makes up 4% of the content people see in their newsfeed.
So Facebook claims the business that gains from news is minimal.
Rather, Facebook is arguing it helps drive traffic to publishers to support news and publishers are the ones getting more benefit out of being on Facebook.
So what's going on with Google?
Well, it's a bit of a different beast because new sites don't actively share on Google.
So Google isn't fighting back with blocking links for now.
At first Google was threatening to pull search out of Australia but instead Google has started making deals with publishers like News Corp and Nine Entertainment the two biggest companies that have been supporting this code What about those smaller publications who count on Facebook to be seen by more people?
How would the little guys compete in this battle?
It's not like you're going to a dozen individual websites every morning for your news.
Most folks are Stumbling on the news as they scroll on Facebook or go on Google searches.
A youth publication called Junkee told the senate hearing that 75% of the site's traffic comes from Google and Facebook.
So would a smaller site survive if it's cut off from Facebook, and how much would Facebook pay compared to a big publisher like News Corp?
If the Australia media bill becomes law Facebook and Google have limited time to make a deal with publishers on how much they should pay for news content.
And if they don't make a deal, well then the government will decide what is fair payment.
So for now, as this drama continues to brew, maybe think twice about counting on Facebook as a place to get all your news for the day.
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