Facebook blocks news in Australia

Apologies if this should go in Technology, but it is a social platform and is more about greed than anything else.

I have always been amazed people get their news off the thing in the first place.

https://www.thespinoff.co.nz/busines...cked-all-news/

Quote:

Media explosion in Australia: Facebook just blocked all news Duncan Greive analyses a shocking development in the global pushback against big tech. At 7.38am today a short email arrived from Facebook News Partnerships. It contained a total of five sentences, the most important reading: “I am writing to confirm that due to new laws in Australia, from today we will reluctantly restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content on Facebook.” Despite its matter-of-fact tone and brevity, it could hardly be more consequential – this is the end (for now, maybe forever) of Facebook as a news distribution channel in Australia. Facebook says news represents less than 4% of content on its platform – but for publishers it can be the source of as much as half their traffic. And for Facebook, the risk is that even if it is only 4% of content, if users consider it critical, do they become less reliant on the platform? This decision impacts New Zealand operators, too: more than 500,000 New Zealanders live across the Tasman, with many avidly consuming news from news organisations here. It’s as if our second-largest city has dropped off the map overnight. It means, for example, that if you live in Australia and follow The Spinoff on Facebook, links to Spinoff content will no longer appear in your feed. (Please consider instead downloading our app and signing up to our newsletters.) If you try to post our content (or any news organisation’s content) from Australia, you’ll see this: .......

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