Facebook: Australia Will Not Be Intimidated' By Tech Giant- PM Scott Morrison
Australian
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said his government will not be intimidated
by Facebook blocking news feeds to users.
He described
the move to "unfriend Australia" as arrogant and disappointing.
Facebook is
responding to a proposed law which would make tech giants pay for news content
on their platforms.
It says the
legislation "fundamentally misunderstands" the relationship between
the platform and publishers.
Australians
on Thursday woke up to find that Facebook pages of all local and global news
sites were unavailable. People outside the country are also unable to read or
access any Australian news publications on the platform.
Several
government health and emergency pages were also blocked. Facebook later
asserted this was a mistake and many of these pages are now back online.
Both Google
and Facebook have fought the law, saying it unfairly "penalises"
their platforms.
However, in
contrast to Facebook, Google has in recent days signed payment deals with major
Australian media outlets. Facebook's action came hours after Google agreed
to pay Rupert Murdoch's News Corp for content from news sites across its media
empire.
In a
statement posted on Facebook, Mr Morrison said that big tech companies
might be changing the world but this did not mean they should run it.
"Facebook's
actions to unfriend Australia today, cutting off essential information services
on health and emergency services, were as arrogant as they were
disappointing," he said.
"I am
in regular contact with the leaders of other nations on these issues. We simply
won't be intimidated," he added.
Mr Morrison
urged Facebook to work constructively with the government, "as Google
recently demonstrated in good faith".
Treasurer
Josh Frydenberg said the ban on news information had a "huge community
impact". About 17 million Australians visit the social media site every
month.
Consumption
of digital news through social media and search engines is growing in
Australia, according to the Reuters Digital News Report for 2020.
Some 37% of consumers
who took part said they had gained access to news via social media over the
course of a week, compared with 31% who had directly accessed websites or apps,
the report said.
Western
Australia Premier Mark McGowan accused Facebook of "behaving like a North
Korean dictator". Others suggested that a news vacuum could be filled by
misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Human Rights
Watch's Australia director said Facebook was censoring the flow of information
in the country - calling it a "dangerous turn of events".
The move
also faced criticism abroad. Julian Knight, the head of the British
parliamentary committee overseeing the media industry, told Reuters news agency
it was "bully boy action".
Meanwhile,
the company behind the Guardian newspaper said it was "deeply
concerned".
Many
Australians are angry about their sudden loss of access to trusted and
authoritative sources.
"It
feels obviously very restrictive in what Facebook is going to allow people to
do in the future, not only in Australia but around the world," Peter
Firth, in Sydney, told the BBC.
Amelia
Marshall said she could not believe the firm's decision "in the middle of
a pandemic", adding: "I've made the long-overdue decision to
permanently delete my Facebook account."
Australian
authorities had drawn up the laws to "level the playing field"
between the tech giants and struggling publishers over profits. Of every
A$100 (£56; $77) spent on digital advertising in Australian media these days,
A$81 goes to Google and Facebook.
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.
The law
sought "to penalise Facebook for content it didn't take or ask for",
the company's local managing director William Easton said.
Facebook
said it helped Australian publishers earn about A$407m last year through
referrals, while "the platform gain from news is minimal".
However,
Facebook is by far the most important social platform for news. In Australia,
about 36% of people use the platform for news. Meanwhile, only 14% of
Australians pay for online news.
Also, media
companies have seen a long-term decline in advertising revenue while that of
Google and Facebook has risen in recent years.
Under the
ban, Australian publishers are restricted from sharing or posting any links on
their Facebook pages. The national broadcaster, ABC, and newspapers like The
Australian have millions of followers.
Australia's
conservative government is standing by the law - which passed the lower house
of parliament on Wednesday. It has broad cross-party support and the Senate is
likely to pass it next week.
"We
will legislate this code. We want the digital giants paying traditional news
media businesses for generating original journalistic content," said Mr
Frydenberg.
He pointed
out that Facebook, like Google, had been negotiating pay deals with local
organisations.
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