How Facebook has Succeeded in Holding the Australian Government to Ransom

A while ago, many Australian pages were lamenting how the tech giant – Facebook, had deactivated their pages. This happened after the imposition of a law requiring tech giants like Facebook and Google to pay news publishers for airing their content on their platform.

However, Facebook may have succeeded in holding the Australian government to ransom in light of the eventual outcome of things.

Did Facebook Stage the Situation in their Favor?

After the Australian government ordered these tech companies to compensate news publishers on their platform, Google adhered amidst complaints that the policy was unwarranted. However, they played by the rules by making compensations where necessary.

Conversely, Facebook went ahead to deactivate all such news reports and pages. However, they took things a step further by removing the pages of sensitive government agencies and private ventures like foundations and charity organizations.

This led to a widespread complaint considering that public relations business was hard to achieve without the aid of a platform like Facebook.

The action was initially thought to be a malfunction of Facebook’s AI system. However, the eventual turn of events is raising questions. This is in light of how the nation’s administrators and the Tech Giant have had closed-door meetings to reach a resolution.

How Facebook Is Calling the Shot in Australia

The outcome of the meeting did not imply that Facebook will be exempted from adhering to the new policy. However, an agreement was reached that Facebook will be responsible for choosing the news publishers it will work with and compensate.

One of the arguments is that these digital platforms allow publishers to air their works. However, this is not the view of many of the publishers as they consider what is aired as intellectual property. For this reason, they strongly hold on to the notion that they deserve compensation and the administrators should do all to protect their interest.