Facebook said on Wednesday that it is preventing people inside Australia from accessing news stories on its platform. Facebook users elsewhere will not be able to view or share news stories from Australian outlets. The moves are a response to proposed legislation that would force social media platforms to pay Australian news organizations for links shared on its sites.
Facebook's announcement came the same day Google said it had reached a deal with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, to pay for its journalism.
Facebook, however, chose the nuclear option, rather than bargain with news publishers in Australia.
"Today we made an incredibly difficult decision to restrict the availability of news on Facebook in Australia," said Campbell Brown, Facebook's vice president of Global News Partnerships, in a blog post. "What the proposed law introduced in Australia fails to recognize is the fundamental nature of the relationship between our platform and publishers."
News publishers, according to Brown, choose to share stories on Facebook, which allows the outlets to find new readers and subscribers, leading to revenue the news organizations would not have found without the social network.
Under the proposed Australian legislation, platforms would have to negotiate with publishers over access to links to news stories. If no deal is reached, the tech companies and media organizations would move to arbitration. In addition, the bill requires platforms to give news outlets notice when algorithms are changed that may affect the visibility and reach of news stories.
Facebook and Google have vigorously fought the proposed legislation in Australia and have publicly threatened to pull out of the country over the effort to compensate news organizations.
While Australia's news market is substantially smaller than the U.S., tech companies and lawmakers are carefully watching the proposal.
At least one tech giant, Microsoft, would like to see a version of Australia's plan in this country.
Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote in a blog post last week that the well-financed tech sector has an obligation to support independent journalism.
"The United States should not object to a creative Australian proposal that strengthens democracy by requiring tech companies to support a free press," Smith wrote. "It should copy it instead."
Facebook has paid publishers in limited circumstances, including to license headlines and for story summaries to be featured on the platform.
"We pay hundreds of publishers for access to more of their content for Facebook News, a product we're working to bring to more countries this year," Facebook's Brown wrote.
Editor's note: Facebook, Google and Microsoft are among NPR's financial supporters.
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