Meta considers blocking Facebook news in Australia

Meta Platforms, Inc. is threatening to apply the same rules on news content in Australia as it uses in Canada. Since last year, the Facebook parent has been blocking such content for its Canadian users. Speaking at an Australian parliamentary hearing last week, Meta’s regional policy director Mia Garlick said all options are on the table when asked if blocking news was likely to occur if the government tries to make it pay licensing fees, according to reporting by the Reuters news agency. Meta currently has deals with News Corp. and the Australian Broadcasting Corp. but said it will not renew the arrangements when they expire this year, Reuters reported. Australia has had its legislation in place since 2021. News Corp, and two other broadcasters have called on the Australian government to ban Facebook and Instagram if Meta goes ahead with its plan. Garlick denied that Meta is trying to sidestep the law by blocking content. “Every other law — tax laws, safety laws, privacy laws — we work to comply with,” Reuters quotes her as saying. “It’s just compliance would look slightly different in relation to this law if it’s fully enacted.” The Australian threats have not deterred one of the nation’s neighbours from going ahead with a similar bill. Tuesday, the government of New Zealand announced it was proceeding with the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, introduced last year. Meta said the bill ignores the realities of how its platforms work. It pledged to work with the administration as the bill moves through Parliament. Carleton University professor of communication and media studies Dwayne Winseck is currently in New Zealand. He told The Wire Report in an email that Meta “can only play this game for so long before it runs out of important markets,” because of “new legislation like the News Media Bargaining Code in Australia and the Online News Act in Canada, similar acts in place in Austria, and others now being contemplated in California and now in , among many other places.” Winseck added that a third to half of internet users in the countries he cited continue to use Meta’s platforms to access and share news. The company cannot ignore the social realities of its services. “Finally, Meta is playing two games here: on the surface and visible level, it is banning and diminishing the importance of news in its services, but on the other. it is engorging itself on news content to train its systems,” Winseck stated. “It cannot, opportunistically, have things both ways.” –Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca

Meta considers blocking Facebook news in Australia

News | | July 4, 2024

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Meta considers blocking Facebook news in Australia

News | | July 4, 2024

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