By Mike Cherney
SYDNEY -- Lawmakers from the U.K. and Canada criticized Facebook
Inc.'s ban on Australian users sharing news articles, and they said
the tech giant could attract more scrutiny around the world as
authorities grow increasingly concerned about its market power.
Facebook removed news from its platform in Australia in response
to legislation that would effectively compel it to pay traditional
media companies for content. The Australian legislation, supported
by media companies including News Corp, owner of The Wall Street
Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co., has been widely watched
globally and could offer a model for other countries that want to
require big tech companies to pay publishers for their content.
Facebook previously warned that it could remove news if the
legislation progressed, but its announcement still caught many
Australians by surprise. Users in Australia woke up Thursday
morning to find that the Facebook pages of Australian and
international publishers appeared blank. Those who tried to post
news links got a message saying the post couldn't be shared. The
tech giant also removed the pages of some government agencies,
which it later said was inadvertent.
The move was criticized by Australian officials and
public-health experts, who pointed out that it could make it more
difficult for people to get information from reliable media outlets
just as Australia began rolling out its coronavirus vaccine. Prime
Minister Scott Morrison said he wouldn't be intimidated, and other
officials said they remain committed to passing the law.
"They may be changing the world, but that doesn't mean they run
it," Mr. Morrison said on his Facebook page, adding that an
increasing number of countries are concerned about the behavior of
big tech companies. Mr. Morrison said he discussed the issue with
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday and that he has also
talked about it in the past with leaders from the U.K., France and
Canada.
In the U.K., Julian Knight, the lawmaker who chairs the digital,
culture, media and sport committee, tweeted that Facebook's move
was deeply irresponsible. The news blackout also called into
question Facebook's commitment to be a good global citizen, he said
in the tweet.
"Australia is the canary in the coal mine now as far as
social-media legislation is concerned," he said.
In Canada, the country's heritage minister, Steven Guilbeault,
called Facebook's actions highly irresponsible, and he said his
government would move forward on legislation to fairly govern the
relationship between news media and tech companies. Mr. Guilbeault
said he met last week with his Australian, Finnish, German and
French counterparts to work together on the issue.
"The more of us around the table adopting similar regulations,
the harder it will be for Facebook to continue such actions," he
said on his Facebook page. "There is strength in numbers."
In the U.S., Facebook is facing antitrust litigation and it has
been criticized in the past for being slow to remove misinformation
from its platform, particularly around the 2016 election. Rep.
David Cicilline, the chairman of the antitrust subcommittee in the
House, also criticized the news ban in Australia.
Facebook didn't immediately respond to the lawmakers' comments.
Facebook has said it recognizes news plays an important role in a
democracy, and it has been willing to pay for news in other
contexts. In 2019, it announced it would pay news organizations --
including the Journal -- to license their headlines and story
summaries for a news service.
The proposed law would effectively require publishers and tech
companies like Facebook and Alphabet Inc.'s Google to negotiate and
submit to binding arbitration if they can't reach a deal. Media
outlets contend that the tech companies currently have no incentive
to negotiate because Facebook and Google effectively have
monopolies over social media and search, respectively.
Facebook has argued that the proposed law misunderstands the
relationship between publishers and tech companies, noting that
publishers benefit because links on Facebook send users directly to
news websites. Facebook has also said that publishers willingly
choose to post news on Facebook, unlike with search engines, which
take content from newspapers and other publishers.
Google has also opposed the law and at one point threatened to
shut down its search engine in Australia. But Google has since
agreed to new deals to pay publishers for content, including News
Corp, which owns several big publications in Australia.
In Australia Friday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said that
negotiations with Facebook were continuing. He said he talked to
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and that the two discussed
their remaining issues and agreed to try to work through them. They
planned to talk again over the weekend, Mr. Frydenberg said on
Twitter.
Mr. Frydenberg said the proposed law is already leveling the
playing field between tech giants and the news companies. He argued
that Google's recent deals wouldn't have happened without the
possibility of the law being enacted. The law has passed
Australia's lower chamber of parliament, and the upper chamber is
expected to consider the matter next week.
"This was never meant to be easy," Mr. Frydenberg said in a
television interview Friday. "Otherwise other countries would have
moved a long time ago. We're trying to succeed here in Australia
where others have failed."
Peter Lewis, the director of the Australia Institute's Centre
for Responsible Technology, said Facebook may have wanted to turn
public opinion against the government by removing news. But that
strategy seems to have backfired given that Facebook inadvertently
removed pages from government agencies, unions and community
groups, demonstrating just how much control Facebook has over what
goes on its platform, Mr. Lewis said.
"It does feel like there is sea change coming," he said. "Two
decades of unregulated expansion of platform technology without
constraint is having negative consequences."
Write to Mike Cherney at mike.cherney@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 19, 2021 07:13 ET (12:13 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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