Human rights advocates also criticized Facebook’s move. Elaine Pearson, Australia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement posted on Twitter that the social media giant is restricting important information such as Covid-19 updates.
“Facebook is severely restricting the flow of information to Australians,” she said.
“This is an alarming and dangerous turn of events. Cutting off access to vital information to an entire country in the dead of the night is unconscionable,” she added.
Facebook said in response to CNBC’s request for comment that government pages should not be affected by its latest move in Australia.
“The actions we’re taking are focused on restricting publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
“As the law does not provide clear guidance on the definition of news content, we have taken a broad definition in order to respect the law as drafted. However, we will reverse any Pages that are inadvertently impacted,” the statement read.
Many of the affected government pages were restored by mid-afternoon.
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/18/australias-treasurer-says-facebook-was-wrong-to-block-news-content.html
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