Facebook threatens to block Australian users from sharing news
Facebook threatened to block Australian publishers and people from sharing news stories on its platform in a reaction to an Australian measure that could want it to pay media organizations because of its use of their stories.
The social networking said the Australian move would force it to pay arbitrary and theoretically unlimited sums for information which makes up only a tiny fraction of its service.
The measure would force Facebook to select between “either removing news totally or accepting something that lets publishers charge us for as much content because they want at a cost with no clear limits,” the company’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, Will Easton, wrote in a weblog post. “No business can operate that way.”
Campbell Brown, a former NBC and CNN anchor who's Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships, said the cutoff threat “has nothing in connection with our ongoing global commitment to journalism.” Brown’s post, which cited a range of individual Facebook programs designed to support news organizations, was titled “Our Continued Commitment to Journalism.”
The threat came after an appointment period on the draft law ended last week and the Australian government reaches work on its final wording.
Australian Communications Minister Paul Fletcher declined to state whether he thought Facebook would make good on its threat.
“It’s definately not unprecedented for big tech companies to create heavy-handed threats,” Fletcher said.
“We will continue with this thorough and careful process, our public policy process, based after the facts, based after giving all stakeholders the chance to put their views,” he added.
Google, meanwhile, issued an open letter that cast the proposed Australian law as a potential threat to individual privacy and a burden that could degrade the quality of its search and YouTube video services, but didn't threaten a cutoff.
“Mark Zuckerberg is pleased to let Facebook be a tool to spread misinformation and fake news, but is apparently fine with Facebook dropping real news altogether,” John Stanton, co-founder of the Save Journalism Project, said in a statement. “Regulators have to reign in the tech giants’ total domination of the online marketplace before it’s too late.”
Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the proposed laws would “create a far more sustainable media landscape and see payment for original content.”
“Australia makes laws that advance our national interest. We don’t react to coercion or heavy handed threats wherever they result from,” Frydenberg said, discussing the Facebook threat.
The draft legislation that aims to create Australia succeed where other countries have failed in forcing the firms to pay media businesses for news content was made public in July.
A public consultation period ended the other day.
Frydenberg has said he hopes Parliament will pass the legislation this year.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Rod Sims, the fair trade watchdog who devised the model to make Facebook and Google purchase content, said he hoped “parties will take part in constructive discussions” as the draft legislation was finalised.
“Facebook’s threat today to avoid any sharing of news on its services in Australia is ill-timed and misconceived,” Sims said.
Terry Flew, a professor in the imaginative industries faculty of the Queensland University of Technology, said it had been impossible to predict how much the proposed laws may cost Facebook because prices had to be negotiated with Australian news businesses.
“My sense will be with regards to overall revenues for Facebook, not significant,” Flew said of costs.
“The larger concern that’s animating the digital platforms is the possibility of the legislation extending from Australia into other jurisdictions where it could start to significantly impact upon their global business,” Flew added.
News Corp Australia, among the country’s largest media conglomerates, declined to touch upon Facebook’s statement.
The draft legislation that aims to create Australia succeed where other countries have failed in forcing the firms to pay media businesses for news content was made public in July.
