In exchange, Facebook agreed to restore news links and articles for Australian users “in the coming days,” according to a statement from Josh Frydenberg, Australia’s treasurer, and Paul Fletcher, the minister for communications, infrastructure, cities and the arts.
Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships, said in a statement that the social network was restoring news in Australia as “the government has clarified we will retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook so that we won’t automatically be subject to a forced negotiation.”
The amendments offer a reprieve for both Facebook and the Australian government, which have been in a standoff over the proposed law for months. Those tensions came to a head last week when Facebook cut off news sharing in the country, causing disruption and confusion for millions of Australians.
Links to news articles were blocked, along with the Facebook pages for Australian state agencies, health departments and emergency services. Users became upset when a flood of false or misleading pages filled the information void, spreading bogus theories on the perils of 5G wireless technology and false claims about Covid-19 vaccinations.
“In just a few days, we saw the damage that taking news out can cause,” said Sree Sreenivasan, a professor at the Stony Brook School of Communication and Journalism. “Misinformation and disinformation, already a problem on the platform, rushed to fill the vacuum.”
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/technology/facebook-australia-news.html
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