They're not wrong that news on FB is opt-in for publishers, as opposed to Google scraping it. A little different if people are linking from a site to a post on FB, but at least you're getting linked to the site.  The worst case is if someone is just screencapping a site's news and posting it as an image, but surely that's the minority. 

Guessing it's a follow on from Stuff. They pulled out from FB like many US ones, as they were in the 'we don't get paid the ad revenue you do from people for our content so why should we' camp 

From The Value of News on Facebook:

 

Today we made an incredibly difficult decision to restrict the availability of news on Facebook in Australia. For the last three years, Facebook has worked closely with the Australian government on regulation that would help better define the relationships between technology companies and news organizations. Regulatory environments conducive to strong collaboration allow us to build innovative and sustainable ways to support journalism for the long term.

 

What the proposed law introduced in Australia fails to recognize is the fundamental nature of the relationship between our platform and publishers. Contrary to what some have suggested, Facebook does not steal news content. Publishers choose to share their stories on Facebook. From finding new readers to getting new subscribers and driving revenue, news organizations wouldn’t use Facebook if it didn’t help their bottom lines. But we think we can do more and through the Facebook Journalism Project we have the right resources and team in place to bring innovation to the future of digital news.

 

We launched The Facebook Journalism Project four years ago to work with publishers to help them succeed on our 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. Through meaningful collaborations with publishers, we’ve built free tools, products and programs and we’ve landed on ideas that actually work. Our Accelerator programs have brought real financial benefit to over 120 publishers across the world. Updates to Instant Articles and our subscriptions product have improved monetization for publishers significantly. We’re bringing Facebook News to more markets this year, beginning with the UK, which we launched in January, and we’ll continue to build new products for and with publishers. We’re also kicking off a new focus area of the Facebook Journalism Project to support independent journalism.

 

Navigating the changes that come with becoming a digital-first business is not easy, and the news industry has long struggled with this. Only through communication and collaboration can we partner with publishers to provide tools and products that truly help with this transition - both on and off our platform. It is critical that regulatory environments invite investment and innovation that will support as many news publishers as possible.

 

I hope in the future, we can include news for people in Australia once again. For now, we continue to be focused on bringing Facebook News and other new products to more countries and we have no intention of slowing down.

 

Also from Facebook Changes to Sharing and Viewing News on Facebook in Australia: 

 

In response to Australia’s proposed new Media Bargaining law, Facebook will restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content. 

 

The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content. It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter.

 

This discussion has focused on US technology companies and how they benefit from news content on their services. We understand many will ask why the platforms may respond differently. The answer is because our platforms have fundamentally different relationships with news. Google Search is inextricably intertwined with news and publishers do not voluntarily provide their content. On the other hand, publishers willingly choose to post news on Facebook, as it allows them to sell more subscriptions, grow their audiences and increase advertising revenue. 

 

In fact, and as we have made clear to the Australian government for many months, the value exchange between Facebook and publishers runs in favor of the publishers — which is the reverse of what the legislation would require the arbitrator to assume. Last year Facebook generated approximately 5.1 billion free referrals to Australian publishers worth an estimated AU$407 million. 

 

For Facebook, the business gain from news is minimal. News makes up less than 4% of the content people see in their News Feed. Journalism is important to a democratic society, which is why we build dedicated, free tools to support news organisations around the world in innovating their content for online audiences.

 

Over the last three years we’ve worked with the Australian Government to find a solution that recognizes the realities of how our services work. We’ve long worked toward rules that would encourage innovation and collaboration between digital platforms and news organisations. Unfortunately this legislation does not do that. Instead it seeks to penalise Facebook for content it didn’t take or ask for. 

 

We were prepared to launch Facebook News in Australia and significantly increase our investments with local publishers, however, we were only prepared to do this with the right rules in place. This legislation sets a precedent where the government decides who enters into these news content agreements, and ultimately, how much the party that already receives value from the free service gets paid. We will now prioritise investments to other countries, as part of our plans to invest in new licensing news programs and experiences. 

 

Others have also raised concern. Independent experts and analysts around the world have consistently outlined problems with the proposed legislation. While the government has made some changes, the proposed law fundamentally fails to understand how our services work.

 

Unfortunately, this means people and news organisations in Australia are now restricted from posting news links and sharing or viewing Australian and international news content on Facebook. Globally, posting and sharing news links from Australian publishers is also restricted. To do this, we are using a combination of technologies to restrict news content and we will have processes to review any content that was inadvertently removed.

 

For Australian publishers this means:

 

• They are restricted from sharing or posting any content on Facebook Pages
• Admins will still be able to access other features from their Facebook Page, including Page insights and Creator Studio  
• We will continue to provide access to all other standard Facebook services, including data tools and CrowdTangle

For international publishers this means:

 

• They can continue to publish news content on Facebook, but links and posts can’t be viewed or shared by Australian audiences

For our Australian community this means: 

 

• They cannot view or share Australian or international news content on Facebook or content from Australian and international news Pages

For our international community this means:

 

• They cannot view or share Australian news content on Facebook or content from Australian news Pages

The changes affecting news content will not otherwise change Facebook’s products and services in Australia. We want to assure the millions of Australians using Facebook to connect with friends and family, grow their businesses and join Groups to help support their local communities, that these services will not change.  

 

We recognise it’s important to connect people to authoritative information and we will continue to promote dedicated information hubs like the COVID-19 Information Centre, that connects Australians with relevant health information. Our commitment to remove harmful misinformation and provide access to credible and timely information will not change. We remain committed to our third-party fact-checking program with Agence France-Presse and Australian Associated Press and will continue to invest to support their important work.

 

Our global commitment to invest in quality news also has not changed. We recognise that news provides a vitally important role in society and democracy, which is why we recently expanded Facebook News to hundreds of publications in the UK. 

 

We hope that in the future the Australian government will recognise the value we already provide and work with us to strengthen, rather than limit, our partnerships with publishers.

 

Seeing Google is now paying for news in Australia, it comes down to Facebook wanting to keep all the (ad) money for themselves.

I guess for FB it's a financial question - allow the news to be shared, potentially gathering more clicks and thus ad revenue and pay upfront for an unknown ad revenue from the content.

Or block the content and miss out on the potential revenue.

I suppose their beancounters decided the latter was a cheaper option.

They likely look at "How much is the AU media advertising expenditure" vs "How much would FB have to pay the AU media"

If they make less money from AU media advertising than would cost for them to keep the feeds going, the bean counters would say "Nope, not good for us"

Google decided that they would have better return by paying. Facebook decided that "we already send clicks to them so they should be happy" 

I wonder if any research has been done on the contribution to GDP and tax that Advertising and Media in New Zealand generated.
A percentage of economy, pre Facebook, Google ,etc and after this income moved offshore.

These companies with very interesting tax structures, that mean they seem to earn little while turning over a great deal.

It would be interesting to see if there are some numbers on what these have done to NZ, Aussie, or other examples.

This tweet concerns me as its an avenue for safety of life that has been silenced 

DjShadow:

 

This tweet concerns me as its an avenue for safety of life that has been silenced 

 

 

 

 

 

It's not like it's the only source of news, or should it be anyones primary source of news. Facebook is a Social Media Platform. If you want guaranteed access to news, go to a news outlet. 

Oblivian: Queensland health, sa health, police districts.

All blocked as part of it.
As much as we hate it, these agencies reach more people faster in a single post than most media releases

Then I guess legislators will need to consider this as part of their debates.

Facebook, despite most peoples beliefs to the contrary, does not exist as a charitable entity, despite offering it's platform for free to most users.

Despite what most people believe, it does not exist for peoples benefit, but to benefit it's shareholders and stakeholders.

Delude yourself at your peril :)

Can we appreciate the irony here that NZ media (Stuff.co.nz) chose to actively disassociate itself with Facebook back in July last year on principle as a result of Facebooks stance actively support misinformation, lies and being a general cesspool of humanity?

To be honest, right now, even if you pay, you are still likely the product :)