Facebook unfriends Australia in newsworthy show of strength

摘要

As Australia’s Federal Parliament prepared to debate legislation requiring Facebook and Google to negotiate commercially with publishers for sharing and distributing news content on their platforms, Facebook struck preemptively. On February 18, 2021, the social media giant started restricting Australian users from accessing local and international news content on its platform.Australia's new Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020 has been in development since April 2020. That is when the Australian government asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to develop a code of conduct "to address bargaining power imbalances between Australian news media businesses and digital platforms, specifically Google and Facebook."