(Bloomberg) – Facebook Inc. has begun restricting news sharing on its service in Australia, challenging a controversial bill that would require technology companies to pay publishers when their articles are published by users.
The ban is the strongest action in response to the proposed legislation, which would force Alphabet Inc.’s Facebook and Google to pay publishers for the value their articles generate on digital platforms. The media demanded such payments, arguing that they should be fairly compensated for their journalism, as Google and Facebook capture much of the advertising market.
Facebook’s decision prevents Australians from sharing news and prevents global users from sharing articles from Australian publishers. The action threatens to cut off one of the most popular ways people use to access news and information online.
It is possible that the law proposed by Australia sets a precedent with other countries around the world that have seen Facebook and Google impact their respective news sectors. Although opposed to the measure in Australia, Google and Facebook have entered into separate voluntary agreements to pay publishers. Earlier on Wednesday, News Corp. by Rupert Murdoch, an advocate for the Australian proposal, said he had reached an agreement with Google to have the search giant pay for the journalism of the Wall Street Journal and its other newspapers.
Josh Frydenberg, treasurer for Australia, tweeted that he had a “constructive discussion” with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday morning, Australian time. “He raised some remaining questions with the government news media trading code and we agreed to continue our conversation to try to find a way forward,” he wrote. A Facebook spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last summer, Facebook threatened to prevent people and publishers in Australia from sharing news on their main social network and on Instagram, if the legislation became law. Google also threatened to close its search engine in Australia.
Google Contrast
On Wednesday, Facebook tried to contrast Google, arguing that publishers do not voluntarily provide articles that appear in Google search results, while voluntarily posting news on Facebook, which helps them reach a wider audience.
The Australian proposal penalizes Facebook “for content it didn’t pick up or request,” said William Easton, Facebook’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, in a blog post on Wednesday.
“The proposed law misinterprets the relationship between our platform and the publishers who use it to share news content,” he said. “This left us with a difficult choice: to try to comply with a law that ignores the reality of this relationship or to stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter. “
Publishers already reap tangible benefits from links on Facebook, Easton said. Last year, Facebook generated about 5.1 billion free referrals to Australian publishers, worth an estimated A $ 407 million ($ 315 million), he said, without providing a basis for the calculation.
What is news?
Facebook said it will rely on machine learning software to determine which links are considered news. The software looks for “specific news signals such as opportunity, presence of signatures and assigned sources” in an effort to predict whether something should be classified as news, according to a company’s help page.
It is possible that non-journalistic articles, such as opinion articles, are also restricted if they come from organizations that are predominantly news-oriented, a spokeswoman confirmed.
Only 4% of posts that people see on Facebook’s News Feed are news, the company said. Facebook previously cut articles in user feeds in early 2018 as a way to increase the number of posts people see from friends and family.
(Updates with details of Mark Zuckerberg’s discussion in the fourth paragraph.)
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