Beautiful Virgin Islands

Sunday, Sep 21, 2025

Tech Tent: Facebook v Australia - two sides to the story

Tech Tent: Facebook v Australia - two sides to the story

The battle between the Australian government and the tech giants over a law which would make them pay for news content has been rumbling on for a while.

But Facebook's move to ban all Australian news content from its platform has taken the conflict to a whole new level.

One of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers described it as "an act of war". But others see the actions of Australia's politicians as being an outrage against the principle of net neutrality.

This week's Tech Tent podcast asks whether Mark Zuckerberg overplayed his hand, making it more likely that other countries will follow Australia's lead.

'They botched it'


If Facebook's founder thought that his bold move to impose a news blackout in one country would make politicians around the world rethink how they regulate his company, he may have been right.

The problem is that they now seem even more determined to clip its wings.

For one thing, the way Facebook carried out its bold move ended up looking ham-fisted.

"They botched it, there's absolutely no doubt about that," says Steve Evans, a former BBC correspondent who is now a reporter for the Canberra Times.

"Not only did they block media organisations, but they blocked government health websites. So access to up-to-the minute information about Covid, for example, was suddenly not available on Facebook."

That meant the social media giant faced a wave of outrage, not just from Australian newspapers and politicians but around the world.

In the United States, Democratic Congressman David Cicilline said Facebook was not compatible with democracy, and that threatening to bring an entire country to its knees was the ultimate admission of monopoly power.

In the UK, Julian Knight MP, who chairs the Commons media select committee, said the company was behaving like a bully.

"This is a crass move," he told the BBC.

"I don't think they are being a good citizen, not just in Australia, but elsewhere [too].

"To pull the plug overnight represents the worst type of corporate culture."

The counter-view


Now other countries which do not see Facebook as a good citizen may not go as far as Australia in demanding that tech firms pay up just for the privilege of sharing a news link.

But many governments, concerned about how their newspapers have seen advertising revenues melt away in the online era, may now feel it's time to show they can also be tough on the tech giants.

There is, of course, another side to this story.

Even amongst Facebook's critics, not everyone is convinced that Australia has got the right approach.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has been deeply concerned about the social media giant's failure to curb abuse and the spread of disinformation.

But the web's creator told an Australian senate hearing that if the idea of forcing companies to pay for certain links spread around the world, it could make the internet as we know it unworkable.

For him, the principle of net neutrality - that all traffic should be treated equally and flow freely rather than being taxed or slowed down according to its nature - trumps all other concerns.

Mark's call?


Then there are those who allege that the Australian law will merely benefit an old media superpower - Rupert Murdoch's newspaper empire - without doing much to undermine the dominance of Facebook and Google in online advertising.

Facebook is also keen to point out that in several countries, including the UK, it's already paying some publishers for news articles.

It appears it may have been close to negotiating a similar deal in Australia, just as Google has done with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

If it was Mark Zuckerberg who decided to pull the rug from under those talks, that now looks like a major blunder in this PR war.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
EU Set to Bar Big Tech from New Financial Data Access Scheme
China Bans Livestreaming and AI in Religion Amid Crackdown on Shaolin Temple Scandal
Documents Reveal Mandelson Failed to Declare Epstein-Funded Flights as MP in 2003
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Harris Memoir Sparks Backlash from Democrats for Blunt Critiques in ‘107 Days’
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Japan’s ‘Death-Tainted’ Homes Gain Appeal as Prices Soar in Tokyo
Massive Attack Withdraws from Spotify Over Daniel Ek’s €600M Defence-AI Investment
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders Third Lethal Strike on Drug-Trafficking Vessel as U.S. Expands Maritime Counter-Narcotics Operations
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
Why Google Search Is Fading and AI Is Taking Its Place
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Federal Judge Dismisses Trump’s Fifteen-Billion-Dollar Suit Against New York Times, Orders Refile
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
×