Table of Contents
What has happened?
- Australians woke up on Thursday to find the Facebook pages of all local and global news sites were unavailable.
- Several government health, emergency and other pages were also blocked on Thursday – something the tech giant later asserted was a mistake.
- Australia’s government said the ban threatened Facebook’s “credibility”.
- Those outside of Australia are also unable to read or access any Australian news publications on the platform.
- Facebook’s move is in response to a proposed law in Australia which would make tech giants pay for news content.
- Companies like Google and Facebook have argued the law doesn’t reflect how the internet works, and unfairly “penalises” their platforms.
- The Australian government has said it is proceeding with the law, which passed parliament’s lower house on Wednesday.
- “Facebook needs to think very carefully about what this means for its reputation and standing,“ Communications Minister Paul Fletcher told.
July, 2020
- In July 2020, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) had, as a part of its efforts to tackle the rising powers of companies such as Google and Facebook,
- Proposed that media companies could bargain terms of payment for their articles featured in news feed of online tech giants.
- This effectively means that if Google and Facebook include certain news items from media companies on their platform in various services such as Facebook News Feed, Instagram, Google Search, etc.
- They would have to pay the media companies a certain amount.
- Since a large number of internet users now get their daily news digest from these tools instead of visiting the media companies’ website or social media handles directly,
- The ACCC proposed that it was only fair that such media organisations be paid for the news.
- This amount, based on the deal that they strike with individual companies, could either be on a per click basis on the link or a fixed amount per month or per year.
Why is Facebook doing this?
- Australia’s competition regulator said it had drawn up the laws to “level the playing field” between the tech giants and publishers over profits.
- But Facebook said the law left it “facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia”.
- “With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter,“ it said in a blog post.
- Australian publishers are also restricted from sharing or posting any links on their Facebook pages.
- The national broadcaster, the ABC, and newspapers like The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian have millions of followers.
- Facebook said that it helped Australian publishers earn about A$407m (£228m;$316m) last year through referrals, but for itself “the platform gain from news is minimal”.
- The law sought “to penalise Facebook for content it didn’t take or ask for”, said the company’s local managing director William Easton.
How have Australians responded?
- The ban sparked an immediate backlash, with many Australians angry about their sudden loss of access to trusted and authoritative sources.
- Several pointed out that Facebook was one crucial way that people received emergency news updates about the pandemic and national disaster situations.
- Human Rights Watch‘ Australia director said Facebook was censoring the flow of information in the country – calling it a “dangerous turn of events“.
- “Cutting off access to vital information to an entire country in the dead of the night is unconscionable,” said Elaine Pearson.
What is the government doing?
- Australia’s conservative government is standing by the law – which will be debated again in parliament today.
- It has broad cross-party support.
- Treasurer Josh Frydenberg tweeted that he had a “constructive” discussion with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday.
- Facebook’s action came hours after Google agreed to pay Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for content from news sites across its media empire.
Q) Which among the following is not a statutory body?
- Armed Forces Tribunal
- National Legal Services Authority
- Central Vigilance Commission
- Central Bureau of Investigation
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