Faizel Patel – 23/02/2021
Facebook has announced it will lift a ban on Australians sharing news after a deal was struck with the Australian government on legislation that would make digital giants pay for journalism.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher confirmed that they had reached agreement that would make the social network and Google pay for news that they feature.
Facebook last week blocked pages of all local and global news sites in response to a proposed law, which would make tech giants pay for news content on their platforms.
Australian media and communications expert Diana Bossio says after the amendments are agreed to, the legislation could pass through Parliament as soon as Wednesday.
“It also means that Facebook do have some more power in this legislation to call the shots about who and how they negotiate payments on their site about who can actually post news content.”
Bossio says the amendments could be seen as the Australian government backing down to ensure that news feeds on Facebook are eliminated from the legislation and therefore the social media platform will not necessarily be subjected to the law.
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