Breaking No News?

As of Wednesday, February 17th, 2021, Facebook has banned all publishers and users in Australia to share or view news content in response to the new media and digital law.

No longer will scrolling through your Facebook newsfeed be the way we update ourselves on national or global news! Facebook has banned Australians from sharing or viewing Australian or international news content due to the new media law implemented by the Australian Government.  

So, what is the new legislation?

The ‘News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code’ purpose is to “address the bargaining power imbalances with digital platforms and media companies” according to the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission). This law is a world first and will target tech giants such as Facebook and Google and force them to pay local news outlets and journalists for featuring and linking to their stories.

So, what did Facebook do?

Google and Facebook both had very different responses to the recent bargaining code law. Google at first was outraged stating, “The ability to link freely between websites is fundamental to Search. This code creates an unreasonable and unmanageable financial and operational risk to our business”. They also threatened to pull the search engine completely from Australia. However, on Wednesday Google announced they have struck a revenue-sharing agreement with NewsCorp. This will enable Google to still display news story links from the company on its service.

However, Facebook reacted contrastingly different to Google. They instead decided to remove themselves from the issue and ban all publishers and users from posting, sharing or seeing news content. Not only will Australians not be able to see or share Australian news but also see or share international news. News will no longer be accessible for Australians through Facebook. Facebook stated it faced a difficult choice between attempting to comply with a law or banning news content on its services in Australia — and "with a heavy heart" it was choosing the latter. The company stated that news content only took up 4% of their consumers’ news feed so removing it from their service would not have a huge impact on the business.

So, what does that mean for us?

With the new implementation of the media law, it will mean consumers will need to find other outlets, instead of Facebook, to source news. This news isn’t anything to stress about as a business however as a consumer you just need to be more aware of where the news will be published.

So welcome to the new way of looking at the news, well… not looking at it.