Facebook Apparently Banning All Australian Media

[Ozlsn]

Facebook has apparently decided to ban all Australian media as a result of proposed government legislation that would force them to pay for news content that is shared.

Facebook claims they provide free clicks; the news companies say they are acting as a publisher.

Either way the response is ridiculously over the top as sites including the Royal Children's Hospital (not a news organisation), The Chaser and The Betoota Advocate (both satirical), the Bureau of Meterology and Department of Health and  Human Services (also not news organisations), political bloggers, Overland (literary journal) and more are blocked.

It is an.. interesting insight into how much power they actually have - and the response I'm seeing is fascinating - if Facebook doesn't want us on there, well we can live with that. Pretty sure their revenue would cover the costs being proposed. As an attempt to get us to pressure the government I think they may have underestimated how much support this move has cost them.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Coconut Flan

[Someone Out There]

Honestly, I go to other sites for news (and I still don't click a lot of the links on those either). I don't care if they withdraw Australian news on Facebook or not. It appears that the algorithm Facebook used had unintended consequences and they are restoring a number of sites.

I do think that its a bit rich that the government decides to put in the laws, and then complains about it when Facebook responds by withdrawing the news from their platform.

[Ozlsn]

I've read some of the proposed legislation and it is interesting. From this Twitter thread the legislation was partially drafted by News Corp (owned by Murdoch) to cover as broad a scope as possible:

I agree that the government outrage seems manufactured. There is another interesting Twitter thread wondering if the FB response has an ulterior motive - I have no idea how valid or not that is but it's interesting.

Mostly I'm waiting to see what sites are coming back- the most bizarre block for me so far was the Cancer Council who tend to only run health promotion.

[Ozlsn]

I should also point out that while most Australian non-news sites have been restored, overseas news Facebook pages are also content free in Australia. So BBC, CNN, Het Belang van Limburg, CBS (all of it), Le Monde, Die Welt, The Washington Post are among those I've checked. While I get most of my news from local sites, I do miss seeing interesting articles via friends from news sites I don't have time to read daily that I wouldn't otherwise see. 

I'm also amused that people are getting around it by screenshotting the headlines and posting with just the link which works so far, and isn't really that dissimilar to the normal sharing.

Mostly though I'm interested in how much news consumption has changed for me at least - oh and how easy it apparently was for FB to do that. Which begs the question of why they didn't do it with certain other sites earlier.

 

 

[Someone Out There]

I have no idea on how much news consumption has changed (if at all). From something I heard the news sites were about 4% of the traffic in Facebook from Australia, so basically a small percentage of a small percentage. So removing them are neither here nor there.

In regards to certain other sites, probably part of the issue is that they keep popping up renamed etc. The dissapearance of a number of sites that shouldn't have been dissapeared indicates that there algorithm was too aggressive (i.e. unintended consequences). While it is easy to program for some things, its not easy to program for others.

Edited to add: Also those news orgs who wanted it may have shot themselves in the foot (looking at the Murdoch and Packer empires). They use Facebook to share their content as much as anyone else.

Edited February 20, 2021 by Someone Out There
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[adidas]

My work’s FB site was wiped yesterday - silly FB has opened itself right up to lawsuits. It has been restored now.

I can’t say much because of my confidentiality contract but it was frustrating that the FB sites of our two main competitors were not taken down.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/facebook-could-face-lawsuits-for-unconscionable-conduct-over-nonnews-wipe-out/news-story/b312cef33b8e2261e8b5743f9bf87ca6

[Ozlsn]

The Chaser is having a field day right now:

[adidas]

They’ve apologised for wiping so many pages yesterday. If not sure if my boss will accept that apology ?

https://www.9news.com.au/national/facebook-exec-apologises-after-aussie-news-ban-blocks-government-and-charity-pages/562a1b29-fec6-4156-b18d-421778dedd03

Just now, adidas said:

They’ve apologised for wiping so many pages yesterday. I’m not sure if my boss will accept that apology ?

https://www.9news.com.au/national/facebook-exec-apologises-after-aussie-news-ban-blocks-government-and-charity-pages/562a1b29-fec6-4156-b18d-421778dedd03

 

[Ozlsn]

I found this analysis of the impact on publisher's sites quite interesting.

The peak here is roughly daytime in Europe — but again, traffic takes its usual overnight dip and then never comes back. The last 24 hours here move from 43,000 hourly pageviews to 3,000.

The decline in Facebook traffic from overseas has a particularly big impact because a larger share of publishers’ international traffic flows through Facebook than does its domestic audience. Call it the Law of Traffic Proximity: People who live near a local news outlet are more likely to head directly to the local daily’s website, while people who live farther away are more likely to click on a News Feed link that reminds them of home.

So while locally there may be a bump in traffic on publisher sites (or not) where publishers are seeing declines are in referrals to sites from overseas traffic who are less likely to visit the site directly. How much impact this will have on them I'm still not sure but it would be an amusing own goal if it does.