Facebook restricts Australian users in response to a proposed law in Australia would make the tech giants like Facebook and Google pay for sharing the news articles.
Australian Facebook users found that they had been restricted from sharing the news content on Thursday.
The people outside of Australia could not access or read the news publications on the platform.
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Not only the local and global news facebook-pages but also many of the Government health emergency pages were made unavailable by Facebook. Later Facebook admitted that it was a mistake to block the Government pages.
The Government criticized this act stating that this showed the immense power of social media giants.
Around 17 million Australians users visit Facebook every month. The number of the users shows that the social media platform has a huge community impact, stated treasurer Joshua Anthony Frydenberg. He added that the Australian Government had to pass the law regardless of social media power. He stated that he wanted to see Facebook seamlessly working in Australia too.
Even though he wanted Facebook in Australia, he said the blockade actions by Facebook were wrong and unnecessary.
Facebook restricts Australian users because not only Facebook but also Google condemns the proposed law and said that this was not how internetwork. The law unfairly penalizes both platforms.
However, google previously agreed to pay for sharing news on its platforms. Google settled to pay Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for sharing news across its platform. Just a few hours after google agreement, Facebook blocked all the Australian users from sharing news.
WHY FACEBOOK BLOCKED AUSTRALIAN USERS?
Australian Government and law-making authorities have proposed this law to level up the profit between the struggling publisher and social media giants like Facebook. Of every Australian 100 Dollars spent on the social media marketing campaign for advertisement, A$81 directly goes into the pockets of not only Facebook but also Google.
For this purpose, Facebook and Google are against this law. The google agreed to pay but Facebook did not show flexibility.