Facebook\u2019s sudden move on Wednesday to cut Australians off from the news (and the rest of the world from Australian news) was as surprising as it was draconian. It blocked Australians from sharing any news links, Australian news publications from hosting their content on the platform, and the rest of us from sharing links to Australian news sites. It also may be a preview of how the platform will respond to the almost-certain future attempts to regulate its business \u2014 not just in Australia, but all over the world.<\/p>\n
Now that we\u2019ve had a few days to see how it\u2019s played out, it seems like the general consensus from media experts is that no one is a winner here, but Facebook at least has a point. Many experts also just don\u2019t like the proposed Australian law that inspired Facebook\u2019s move. So while Facebook was right to balk at the law, the way it went about registering its objection was too abrupt, clumsy, and potentially harmful.<\/p>\n
By also demonstrating the sizable role the platform plays in keeping users informed, Facebook is taking what could be a huge gamble. On one hand, it could prompt the Australian government to come up with a law that Facebook prefers so that it\u2019ll reverse the news block \u2014 the outcome Facebook almost certainly prefers, other than there being no new law at all. But the situation could just as easily prove just how much market power Facebook has. This, in turn, might make the case for regulations to check Facebook\u2019s power that much stronger. <\/p>\n
The News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code \u2014 which is currently making its way through the Australian parliament and will likely pass before its session ends on February 25 \u2014 will require Facebook and Google to negotiate payment agreements with news organizations if they allow users to share news content on their respective platforms. If they don\u2019t, an arbiter will figure out a payment agreement for them. Google and Facebook initially threatened to pull their services from the country if the law were to pass, but, as that passage looked more and more likely, their responses were very different. Google started making deals with publications. Facebook, \u201cwith a heavy heart,\u201d cut the country off at the knees by banning news outlets altogether. <\/p>\n
Australians suddenly found themselves unable to share news links on their timelines, and publications found their pages essentially wiped of content. There was a global impact as well: Australians couldn\u2019t share international news links, as international news publications were blocked in the country just like the native ones. <\/p>\n
The ban didn\u2019t just affect the news, however. While Facebook told Recode that it intended to take \u201ca broad definition in order to respect the law as drafted,\u201d the company appears to have been overzealous in its banning. Facebook blocked a lot of pages and links that weren\u2019t news, including charities, bike trails, Facebook itself, and government agencies, including health sites, as the country prepares to begin its Covid-19 vaccine rollout. Either Facebook\u2019s block was hasty and careless, or it was spiteful \u2014 or it was a combination of both. In any case, it wasn\u2019t a good look.<\/p>\n
\u201cFacebook managed to turn attention away from a flawed piece of legislation and on to its own reckless, opaque power,\u201d wrote Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School. \u201cEven for a company that specializes in public relations disasters, this was quite an achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Techdirt founder and media analyst Mike Masnick, on the other hand, thought Facebook was perfectly within its rights to do what it did. He even argued that the news ban is in the best interests of a \u201cfree and open internet,\u201d as the Australian law will force Google and Facebook to pay a \u201clink tax\u201d that he feels is \u201cinherently problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA bunch of lazy newspaper execs who failed to adapt and to figure out better internet business models not only want the traffic, they also want to get paid for it,\u201d Masnick wrote. \u201cThis is like saying that not only should NBC have to run an advertisement for Techdirt, but it should have to pay me for it. If that seems totally nonsensical, that\u2019s because it is. The link tax makes no sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of those who criticize the new Australian law point out that Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp dominates Australian media, likely stands to gain the most from it. After all, when enacted, the law would require Google and Facebook to pay Murdoch, who used his considerable influence on the Australian government to push for legislation like this for years. Case in point: News Corp has already made a multi-year, multi-million-dollar deal with Google (Facebook\u2019s ban was announced and implemented just hours after the Google-News Corp deal was announced). Australia\u2019s other media giants, Seven West Media and Nine Entertainment, also worked out big deals with Google. But it remains to be seen how the law \u2014 or the threat of it \u2014 would benefit smaller publishers that don\u2019t have the same resources or power to negotiate deals with one of the biggest companies in the world.<\/p>\n
Among those who have a problem with the law itself, many agree with the motivation behind it: Google and Facebook have benefited from the news industry. The platforms get traffic from users who are reading and sharing the news, but more importantly, they dominate the digital ad industry. Because most news outlets rely heavily on digital ads for revenue, they\u2019re almost forced to agree to Facebook\u2019s and Google\u2019s terms and prices. So the tech giants get a nice cut from those ads, while news publications have effectively lost their business model. <\/p>\n
That dominance \u2014 and the media\u2019s decline \u2014 is why the law was the recommendation of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which has been looking into Google and Facebook for years. Commissioner Rod Sims has said that he believes the two have too much market power, and the law is needed for media companies to have a chance at a fair deal for a cut of the profits those platforms have made off of their content.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Scott Morrison strongly urged Facebook to reconsider and \u201cfriend us again,\u201d saying that the block was \u201cnot a good move\u201d and may well have ramifications for the company beyond Australia\u2019s borders. Canada, France, and the European Union are believed to be considering similar laws, and the United States is pursuing antitrust actions against Facebook, Google, and other Big Tech companies, both on state and federal levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of world interest in what Australia is doing,\u201d Morrison told the Associated Press. \u201cThat\u2019s why I invite, as we did with Google, Facebook to constructively engage because they know that what Australia will do here is likely to be followed by many other Western jurisdictions.\u201d<\/p>\n