Facebook threatens to dam news distribution in Australia
The measure would force Facebook to settle on between “either removing news entirely or accepting a system that lets publishers charge us for the maximum amount content as they need at a price with no clear limits.
Facebook, Facebook Australia, Facebook News, Facebook Australia News, Facebook Australia news agencies, Facebook Australia publishers
The threat came after a consultation period on the draft law ended last week and therefore the Australian government gets to figure on its final wording. Australian Communications Minister Paul Fletcher declined to mention whether he thought Facebook would observe on its threat. (Image: Bloomberg)
Facebook threatened to dam Australian publishers and individuals from sharing news stories on its platform in reaction to an Australian measure that would require it to compensate media organizations for its use of their stories. The social network said the Australian move would force it to pay arbitrary and theoretically unlimited sums for information that creates up only alittle fraction of its service.
The measure would force Facebook to settle on between “either removing news entirely or accepting a system that lets publishers charge us for the maximum amount content as they need at a price with no clear limits,” the company’s director for Australia and New Zealand, Will Easton, wrote during a blog post. “No business can operate that way.” Campbell Brown, a former NBC and CNN anchor who is Facebook’s vice chairman of worldwide news partnerships, said the cutoff threat “has nothing to try to to with our ongoing global commitment to journalism.” Brown’s post, which cited a spread of individual Facebook programs intended to support news organizations, was titled “Our Continued Commitment to Journalism.”
The threat came after a consultation period on the draft law ended last week and therefore the Australian government gets to figure on its final wording. Australian Communications Minister Paul Fletcher declined to mention whether he thought Facebook would observe on its threat.
“It’s faraway from unprecedented for giant tech companies to form heavy-handed threats,” Fletcher said. “We will continue with our thorough and careful process, our public policy process, based upon the facts, based upon giving all stakeholders the prospect to place their views,” he added.
Google, meanwhile, issued an letter that cast the proposed Australian law as a possible threat to individual privacy and a burden that might degrade the standard of its search and YouTube video services, but didn’t threaten a cutoff.
“Mark Zuckerberg is happy to let Facebook be a tool to spread misinformation and faux news, but is seemingly fine with Facebook dropping real news altogether,” John Stanton, co-founder of the Save Journalism Project, said during a statement. “Regulators got to reign within the tech giants’ total domination of the web marketplace before it’s too late.”
Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the proposed laws would “create a more sustainable media landscape and see payment for original content.”
“Australia makes laws that advance our national interest. We don’t answer coercion or heavy handed threats wherever they are available from,” Frydenberg said, pertaining to the Facebook threat.
The draft legislation that aims to form Australia succeed where other countries have failed in forcing the businesses to compensate media businesses for news content was made public in July. A public consultation period ended last week. Frydenberg has said he hopes Parliament will pass the legislation this year.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Rod Sims, the fair trade watchdog who devised the model for creating Facebook and Google buy content, said he hoped “parties will engage in constructive discussions” because the draft legislation was finalized.
“Facebook’s threat today to stop any sharing of stories on its services in Australia is ill-timed and misconceived,” Sims said.
Terry Flew, a professor within the creative industries faculty of the Queensland University of Technology, said it had been impossible to predict what proportion the proposed laws could cost Facebook because prices had to be negotiated with Australian news businesses.
“My sense would be in terms of overall revenues for Facebook, not considerably ,” Flew said of costs.
“The bigger concern that’s animating the digital platforms is that the possibility of this legislation extending from Australia into other jurisdictions where it’d start to significantly impact upon their global business,” Flew added.
News Corp Australia, one among the country’s largest media conglomerates, declined to discuss Facebook’s statement. The draft legislation that aims to form Australia succeed where other countries have failed in forcing the businesses to compensate media businesses for news content was made public in July.
