Facebook Threatens to Block All News Sharing on Its Platforms in Australia

[macduke]

Honestly Facebook would be a fraction as bad as they are now if they blocked all news. I support this and hope they block it everywhere. But racist, dangerous, and crackpot conspiracy theories drive engagement and puts money in their pockets so it won't happen until it's forced on them. The other problem is Groups. The crazies will always find a community online, but where Facebook is different is using their algorithm to suggest it to impressionable people and spread these nutty ideas far and wide. Wish that would shut down too but probably also won't happen until forced on them.

 

[insomniac86]

Who the heck is Facebook trying to scare?
“iOS 14 is cutting our tracking revenue.” “We are just going to stop allowing news articles.” What’s the next hollow, whiny threat? “We are going to shut down Facebook?”

Did you read the article and understand the legal?

 

[clayj]

"In a move possibly related to the ACCC's draft code, Facebook has sent a notification to all users, explaining that its terms of service will be updated from October 1 to allow it to remove or restrict access to any content it thinks could cause the social media company legal problems."

Dumb, DUMB move. They should have said December 1 -- doing this as the US election is approaching makes it look like they are going to start censoring users who post political stories or opinions that Facebook doesn't like.

 

[routine_analyst]

This would, in theory, return it back to the platform that was used to connect people via original post content and activities rather than a platform for morons to constantly share their slanted ideologies.

I'd say try it out globally and see how relaxed the human race becomes.

 

[Rocko99991]

Who cares. Worthless platform that no one should be a part of.

 

[Macyourdayy]

FacePlant has news? News to me.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Facebook pays big news organizations for news? Ok. Facebooks doesn't pay the small media? Ok. So the government steps in and forces Facebook to pay them too and Facebook cries? Ok. I don't use Facebook, and in general don't think social media should be someones only source of news, but I think if Facebooks generates income from the work news organizations put in they should pay.

Agreed.

I have a feeling FB has been using Google News or using some web crawling and siphoning to aggregate their news - I'm certain they don't pay a dime! They GET paid from other sources regardless if the sources news is factual or not.

I think this move in Australia should be done by all governments across the globe. Critical, factual, and intelligent writing by authors or the media should be paid for their work and research. Seems like FB is settling with screwing them over and just fine with garbage and conspiracy crap to be spread across their platform. I feel sorry for anyone that uses FB itself, and I feel more sorry that Zuck is finding more desperate measures to make the platform more relevant.

 

[Dustman]

Good! No one should be getting news from Social Media in general, let alone Facebook.

 

[Wahlstrm]

So, Facebook is basically threatening to Make Facebook Great Again?

What a loss for absolutely no one..

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

AUS should block Facebook. Done.

 

[aaronhead14]

Oh they should just do this in all regions. It would help the site so much lol.

 

[Frosties]

Just a for your info EU also want Facebook to pay content creators a tax for links.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Yeahh censoring wooohhhhhh... \o/
But don't moan few years later if you can't access anything other than https://www.usa.gov
China SE....

Ohh and don't forget to vote for a higher wall, too.

irrelevant to what i was saying but you do you.

 

[Seoras]

Abusive monopoly that stifles innovation. Wasn't that what Zuck said about Apple last week?
So now he wants to kick someone out of his store.

 

[GIZBUG]

F’ Facebook!

 

[jsmith189]

While I understand and share in the mutual hatred for Facebook, this has much bigger implications for Australia than just sharing stuff there particularly. I want FB to burn to the ground, but this isn’t a good thing.

 

[Manzanito]

I think it’s time for governments to stand up to facebook. Comply with the law or get the f. out of the country. Who do they think they are?

Yes, I’m biased, I really hate facebook.

 

[dampfnudel]

should just block all users from using the platform. that would be great.

I guess some Aussie instafluencers would fall apart if that happened.

 

[dampfnudel]

AUS should block Facebook. Done.

And Instagram too?

 

[Santiago]

Google should block it from their search result ranking and indexing. The news outlets will see what they have from that

That’s how things went down with Google News in Belgium & Germany and then Spain. In Belgium & Germany, they passed laws letting publishers ask for payment for displaying snippets, and Google refused to show snippets for anyone who wanted payment for it. In Spain, the payment was mandatory, so Google News shut down entirely.

German publisher caves to Google News after massive traffic drop

After a two-week run, Axel Springer will let Google put portions of articles in search results

www.theverge.com

Study Of Spain's 'Google Tax' On News Shows How Much Damage It Has Done

As you may recall, governments across Europe, generally at the behest of traditional newspaper publishers, have been pushing for what they call an “ancillary copyright,” but which is mu…

www.techdirt.com

 

[damphoose]

Huh? So Zuck doesn’t like outisde entities telling him how to run his platform? Weird.

 

[5105973]

I was banned by Facebook over a trivial location issue , they wanted me to scan in my passport as proof of ID , which is a ridiculous level of intrusion imo . Twitter is just as bad . Best avoided

I’m locked out of my account because I put it on a hidden status so I could leave for awhile and not have everyone wonder why I wasn’t liking their posts and so forth. I wanted to retain my account, but because I didn’t log back in regularly I’m locked out even though I can authenticate my password as well as correspond with my account using the email I registered with.

I have to either send in government issued ID or other sensitive documents like my marriage certificate or have about 10 people on my friends list authenticate me. And I don’t even get to choose which friends. It’s random and I keep drawing the same group of people I wanted a break from in the first place. It’s incredibly intrusive and removes control over my own account and gives it to the collective. They can bite me.

I have a Twitter account but I haven’t used it much, so I’m probably locked out of that as well. Ive heard it can be a real cesspool. I’ve seen a few posts linked to Reddit from here; that place looks absolutely incomprehensible; clearly I’m too old to understand half of what’s going on there. I’ll just stick to MacRumors and a couple of small forums and list serves I’ve been on for years. I really miss just getting an actual newspaper and digging through it for the comics. Unfortunately my husband won’t hear of reinstating it. He got sick of canceling deliveries every time we went on vacation.

 

[msp3]

... And this is a bad thing?

 

[Madonepro]

... And this is a bad thing?

Can't see any downsides to this. Anything that makes Facebook irrelevant in todays society has my vote.

 

[Cycling Asia]

most online news sites in Australia usually have stories that are nothing more than an introductory paragraph and then links to twitter and Facebook posts. So, in that case, can Twitter and FB charge the news sites? Would seem fair.