Facebook threatens to block persons and publishers in Australia from sharing news

Facebook plans to block persons and publishers in Australia from sharing news, a move that pushes back against a proposed law forcing the business to pay media businesses for their articles.

The threat escalates an antitrust battle between Facebook and the Australian government, which wants the social-media giant and Alphabet’s Google to pay publishers for the worthiness they provide with their platforms.

The legislation still must be approved by Australia’s parliament. Beneath the proposal, an arbitration panel would decide how much the technology companies must pay publishers if the two sides cannot agree.

Facebook said in a weblog posting Monday that the proposal is unfair and would allow publishers to charge any price they want. If the legislation becomes law, the business says it will require the unprecedented step of protecting against Australians from sharing news on Facebook and Instagram.

“This is a decision we’re making reluctantly,” said Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships. “It's the only way to protect against an outcome that will hurt, not help Australia’s media outlets.”

Facebook continues to be working through the facts of how it would block articles from being shared, she said.

Responding to Facebook’s announcement, Australia Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said: “we don’t react to coercion or heavy-handed threats wherever they come from”. Forcing digital platforms to cover original content would help create “a far more sustainable media landscape”, Mr Frydenberg said in a statement.

The chairman of Australia’s competition regulator, Rod Sims, said Facebook’s threat was “ill-timed and misconceived”. The proposed legislation seeks to bring “fairness and transparency” to Facebook and Google’s relationships with Australian news businesses, Mr Sims said in a statement.

Google has also raised alarms about Australia’s proposal. The measure “would force us to supply you with a significantly worse” Google Search and YouTube, and “put the free services you utilize at risk in Australia”, Mel Silva, managing director of Google Australia and New Zealand, wrote within an open letter.

The Australian government has said it really is trying to level the playing field between the tech giants and an area media industry that's struggling from the loss of advertising revenue. IN-MAY, for instance, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp announced plans to cut jobs and close or stop printing a lot more than 100 local and regional newspapers in Australia.

The Australian-born Murdoch has for years advocated that Facebook and Google purchase news articles that appear on the platforms. And News Corp has lauded government efforts to force both companies to pay for news.

Michael Miller, executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, was quoted widely as saying: “the tech platforms’ days of free-riding on other peoples’ content are ending. They derive immense reap the benefits of using news content created by others in fact it is time for them to stop denying this fundamental truth.”

Yet Facebook’s decision to block news on its platform could prevent publishers from reaching a wider audience. In the first five months of 2020, the business said it sent 2.3 billion clicks from its News Feed to Australian news websites.

The decision could also limit the appeal of Facebook’s social-media platform to Australians who use it to learn news. However, Brown said removing news articles from Facebook in Australia will be “insignificant” to its business because they're a tiny fraction of what users see.

Australia’s new rules are part of a global push by government agencies to modify the tech giants. In a few countries, officials are concerned not just that Facebook and Google are capturing much of the advertising dollars that have sustained journalism, but also with the types of articles getting shared. The stories that have a tendency to go viral on Facebook are the ones that stoke emotion and divisiveness, critics argue.

In April, France’s antitrust regulator ordered Google to pay media companies to show snippets of articles. In June, Google said it could pay some media outlets that'll be featured in a yet-to-be-released news service in Germany, Australia and Brazil.

Last October, Facebook introduced another news section, paying some publishers whose stories are featured. Ms Brown declined to talk about numbers on the popularity of the Facebook News tab, but said nearly all the readers are a new audience for publishers. The other day, Facebook said it plans to expand the news headlines section to other markets globally.