Australian parliament vs Facebook: Facebook restricts content for Australian users
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Canberra, Feb 19: The tech-giant Facebook has recently blocked the Australian users from reading and sharing any local and international news. Facebook has initiated this move in the backdrop of the dispute over new media payment law that Australia has initiated. Australian users have been blocked from reading and sharing local and international news following a dispute over the media payment law. The company is upset over the new legislation brought in by the Australian government that forces the tech companies to pay publishers for their news content.
According to the new legislation, the Australian government wants the tech giants like Google and Facebook to pay for the news which is shared on their platform. The govt had reported that the advertising revenue that earlier supported the publishers is now depleting. Therefore, the new legislation forces them to make deals with media companies separately or to set fees for them.
Facebook, however, has initiated their move to oppose the legislation stating that the proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between Facebook and publishers who use the platform to share news content. Facebook has also dealt with Google to challenge the Australian parliament for the proposed law. On the other hand, Google has also started to sign agreements on revenue-sharing with the publishers.
Facebook's move has sparked outrage in the country because with the move several govt and emergency response pages such as fire services, health authorities and police were removed from the platform. Currently, the users in Australia will not have access to the news content on Facebook, coming from the Australian as well as International media. Besides, the international users will not have access to the news content coming from Australia on Facebook. The media houses and Independent publishers from Australia will be restricted from sharing or posting their content on Facebook Pages.
When the Australian Parliament had proposed a legislation following which the Google and Facebook will require to make payment negotiations with the media companies for using their content, Facebook and Google have argued that the media industry was already benefiting from traffic routed to them through the digital platforms. The tech giants have also stated that, this legislation results into 'unmanageable levels of financial risks as well as the operational risk' for them.