It has been reported that Facebook Inc. has started restricting or rather shut down the sharing of news on its service in Australia. This comes in defiance to a controversial proposed law that required technology companies to pay publishers when their articles were posted by users. The ban , reportedly, constitutes the strongest action taken in response to the proposed legislation.
The proposed legislation requires Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to pay publishers for the value their articles generate on the digital platforms. Google was systematically called upon to pay royalties to the publishing houses for their falling revenues and unjust competition.
News outlets outrightly have demanded payments, stating that they should be fairly compensated for their journalism as Google and Facebook capture much of the advertising market. The total amount required to be paid by google amounts to $700 million.
To which the google authorities had threatened to disable their search engine in Australia, stating that the news content generated mere $ 7.7 billion for the company.
Facebook’s decision bars those in Australia from sharing news stories and blocks users globally from sharing articles from Australian publishers. It threatens to cut off one of the most widely used ways for millions to access information online.
Ironically, this very reason of excessive advertising and huge news market captured by Facebook had led the authorities to regulate the tech giants. Simply put, this is exactly what the policy makers had intended to achieve , which now Facebook threatens as a menace or a warning.
Users have also reported a number of non-news websites — including government platforms for coronavirus information and weather warnings and satirical pages to not display news content.
It is to be noted that the potential fallout from the spat goes far beyond Australia for Facebook and Google. This is due to their dominance of global advertising which has made them a target for watch dogs worldwide. As google rightly fears, Australia’s envisioned law would set a precedent for other countries that have watched the two internet giants impact their news industries.
While the tech giants oppose the measure in Australia, Google and Facebook have been reported to have struck a separate, voluntary agreements to pay publishers. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. — a supporter of the Australian proposal — said it had reached a deal with Google for the search giant to pay for journalism from the Wall Street Journal and its other newspapers.