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Business Daily: Facebook's face-off in Australia

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29/09/2020 GMT

Facebook's face-off in Australia

BBC World Service - Business Daily, Facebook's face-off in Australia

Why Facebook has threatened to ban all news on its Australian site

Why Facebook has threatened to ban all news on its Australian site.

Should Facebook and Google pay for news that appears on their platforms? The Australian government thinks so. It’s drafted a law that would force them to pay - and Facebook is now threatening to ban all news from its Australian site. It’s a high stakes stand-off with potential global repercussions.

Veteran local newspaper publisher Bruce Ellen tells Manuela Saragosa how his business has suffered the past decade as articles are shared online for free. Journalist Zoe Samios of the Sydney Morning Herald says the pushback from Facebook has been especially forceful, while Belinda Barnet of Swinburne University in Melbourne says she thinks they are unlikely to back down. 

But consultant Hal Crawford has little sympathy for the news companies, which he says get a lot more value from social media platforms than vice versa. Plus, Peter Lewis from the Centre for Responsible Technology worries that if Facebook follows through with its threat to remove news altogether from its platform in Australia, what will fill the void?

(Image: Facebook logo seen displayed on a smartphone with 100 dollar bills in the background. Credit: Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

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