Facebook has announced a phased rollout of Facebook News to a small group of Australian users, as well as a $15 million (US$11.1 million) news fund. Facebook News will provide personalised news content for users in a separate tab on its app. It comes after Australia implemented a media bargaining code, which Facebook strongly opposed. In…

Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs has defended the tech giant’s Australian news ban, saying it was “legally necessary” to do so before impending media payment laws were legislated through the country’s Parliament. Clegg, who is a former deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom, wrote in a blog just hours after the news ban was…

The contentious “world-first” media payment law that spurred Facebook to censor news content in Australia will soon be in force after the Australian federal Parliament ratified it on Thursday. The media payment law locks Google and Facebook into a framework where eligible news outlets in Australia, with a minimum revenue of $150,000, can enter negotiations…

The contentious “world-first” media payment law that spurred Facebook to censor news content in Australia will soon be in force after the Australian federal Parliament ratified it on Thursday. The media payment law locks Google and Facebook into a framework where eligible news outlets in Australia, with a minimum revenue of $150,000, can enter negotiations…

Facebook has decided to reverse its sweeping ban on news content in Australia after the tech giant and the federal government agreed to amendments to the impending media payment law. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the Australian government have been engaged in eleventh-hour discussions since the ban came into place last Thursday. By Tuesday Eastern…

Australian news outlets saw their web traffic take a tumble following Facebook’s dramatic ban on news-related content on the platform last week. Data from Chartbeat reveals that across 255 Australian news websites, overall traffic from Facebook users in Australia fell by 13 percent, while visits from overseas-based readers fell 30 percent, according to the ABC….

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd claims impending media bargaining laws will entrench the power of Rupert Murdoch’s news empire. Rudd said Australian media was undergoing a “Fox News-isation” and was breeding climate change denialism and encouraging far-right political extremism. “The Murdoch media empire has campaigned viciously against one side of politics,” he said. Rudd is fronting…

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has labelled Facebook’s decision to ban Australian users from viewing news content as “arrogant” and warned that he is in regular contact with world leaders, who are all contending with how to better regulate Big Tech. “Facebook’s actions to unfriend Australia today, cutting off essential information services on health and emergency…

An Australian expert has said that it is “inconceivable” that Facebook accidentally restricted the pages of a cross-section of critical government departments, emergency services, and non-profit organisations when it implemented a ban on all news content from its platform in Australia. “Facebook hires some of the brightest and best in terms of algorithm design and…

An Australian expert says it is “inconceivable” that Facebook accidentally restricted the pages of critical government departments, emergency services, and non-profit organisations when it implemented a ban on all news content from its platform in Australia. “Facebook hires some of the brightest and best in terms of algorithm design and software engineering,” Associate Professor Rob…