Facebook Australian news shutdown (extended version) | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Australian news shutdown (extended version)

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1 pointbwilli1235 comments

I loathe Facebook. I fail to see them as the bad guy in this.

The Australian government made a policy to prop up a specific powerful media organization with wealthy donors who have falling readers and revenue.

Facebook likely took the easiest way out to remain legal and abide by Australian law.

Any distress with content not showing should be put towards the AU government after all it's a consequence and collateral damage of their policy.

I imagine over the coming weeks certain things will get restored as algorithms etc get tweaked for the edgecases.

..."Facebook didn’t just shut down Australian news sites, it shut down government agency pages: Hospitals, Fire & Rescue, Bureau of Meteorology, just hours after Zuckerberg spoke to our Govt & without warning. If a foreign government did this(e.g China), it would be called terrorism."

Let me guess was it hate speech, were they just trying to hurt themselves in Australia

More. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-18/facebook-news-ban-see...

A survivor of clergy abuse who started a Facebook group to help other survivors says he is "devastated" by the social media giant's decision to block Australian news. Key points:

    The group was started to share reporting on the Royal Commission
    The page owner estimates more than 2,000 articles were shared
    The articles trigger reporting of sexual abuse as victims recognise their abuser

Richie Scutt, who was sexually abused by an Anglican priest when he was 11 years old, started the Facebook group Survivors and Friends in 2016.

He said he started the group to share news reports on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and it became a lifeline for many.

Mr Scutt said the group had grown to around 200 members from across Australia and still primarily shared news stories.

He estimated more than 2,000 news articles had been shared to the Facebook group since 2016, and said he was devastated to find they had all disappeared when he logged onto Facebook this morning.

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