Although no fan of some of facebook’s appraoch to many things here at HOB we believe that the Australian government fundamentally misunderstands the nature of this century’s economy, but that’s not surprising they are supporters of coal and gas technology, believe climate change is a distraction and are too scared to tell people that combustion engine cars are a thing of the past, never mind the fact that with regard to nes they are just doing Murdoch’s bidding.
This is what appeared on our page this morning
Why you can no longer share or see news on Facebook in Australia.
14 million Australians connect on Facebook everyday and we are proud of the role we have in building Australian communities and growing their businesses.
Unfortunately, in response to Australia’s proposed News Media Bargaining Code legislation, Facebook will have to restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content on Facebook.
People outside of Australia also cannot view or share Australian news content or content from Australian news Pages on Facebook.
This is not the outcome we wanted and it’s a step we take reluctantly. The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content.
This discussion has focused on U.S. technology companies and how they benefit from news content on their services. We understand many will ask why the platforms may respond differently. The answer is because our platforms have fundamentally different relationships with news. Google Search is inextricably intertwined with news and publishers do not voluntarily provide their content. On the other hand, publishers willingly choose to post news on Facebook, as it allows them to sell more subscriptions, grow their audiences and increase advertising revenue.
Last year Facebook generated approximately 5.1 billion free referrals to Australian publishers worth an estimated AU$407 million. Despite some of these discussions, Facebook does not steal, take or copy news content.
Over the past few years we’ve built dedicated, free tools to support news organisations around the world in innovating their content for online audiences. We’ve also made multi-million dollar investments in Australian journalism and news organisations. We were prepared to increase our investments in the local industry, including the rollout of our dedicated news product, Facebook News, to support Australian publishers, however we were only prepared to do this with the right rules in place.
The proposed law ignores these investments and the real value we provide to news organisations. The proposed law is written in a way that means we have to treat all publishers the same: if one publisher is out, it requires that all publishers must also be out, even if they are happy with the benefits they receive from Facebook.
The changes affecting news content – which constitutes less than 4 percent of content shared on Facebook – will not otherwise change Facebook’s products and services in Australia. We want to assure the millions of Australians using Facebook to connect with friends and family, grow their business and join Groups to help support their local communities, that these services will not change.
We hope that in the future the Australian Government will recognise the value we already provide and help us to strengthen, rather than limit, our partnerships with publishers.
Read more about our decision at the Facebook newsroom.
Read more about how people can appeal by clicking directly on the notification on their Page which will bring them to the help Centre & appeal form.
Read more about the details of our engagement with the Australian Government and the news industry on this legislation.
