Two weeks ago, the Australian government made a new law for technology giants to pay publishers and news publications for their news content on the platform, resulting in Facebook blocking the country.
Facebook has taken a step to block Australian citizens on its platform from reading and sharing of any local and international news. Australians woke up to find no access to any news, even some government health and emergency pages have also been blocked, which the social media managers says to have been a mistake. Facebook said in their latest blog post, “The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content.”
Facebook’s change has also denied access to Australians to several key government agencies, including police and emergency services, health departments and the Bureau of Meteorology. Also people outside Australia are unable to see any news from the country. This has impacted the communities of Australia, about 17 million Australians visit Facebook every month.
Rufaro Sihle Muyanga.
