Facebook furore

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If you haven’t heard, last Thursday Australia woke up to a Facebook ban. All news, and pages with news, had been wiped.

The history behind it is new legislation in Oz that requires outlets to pay for the news they are reporting… makes sense, news outlets need to make money too. Google threatened to pull its search engine from Australia, but the government didn’t back down. Google are paying for the news.

But not Facebook. They’re barrelling along with their bullying tactics and have removed news (and a lot of sites that weren’t news sites). Doesn’t bother me as I never would use FB as a news source, but apparently a lot of people do. All they have left are the conspiracy type sites, all legitimate news is gone.

I don’t think FB understands Aussies. We don’t respond well to those tactics. One survey I saw yesterday afternoon had the majority of people responding they’ll boycott FB. When Google threatened everyone stopped Googling and used other search engines. With the ongoing China dramas, most of us aren’t buying things made in China.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out, but companies and countries need to understand, Aussies won’t be bullied.

What do you think about Facebook’s behaviour? Would you boycott the site?

10 comments on “Facebook furore”

  1. Sue Bursztynski

    February 22, 2021 at 9:33 pm

    I’ve never had a FB account; when I was teaching I really didn’t want my students finding me there, then I decided I didn’t need it. I have a blog and a Twitter account and a Goodreads account. If I want news I have my subscription to the Age and there are others available.

    But a lot of businesses are on Facebook and you can’t communicate without an account. We have really come to rely too much on it. I really hope a lot of people do leave, but I doubt it will make much difference. A lot of people left Goodreads when Amazon took over, but it’s still going strong. So is Amazon.

    • ajblythe

      February 23, 2021 at 9:25 am

      A lot of non-news businesses (including authors) have had their pages wiped as well. I heard this morning advertising spending is being pulled… well into the millions of dollars worth.

      As I heard from one expert this morning, you don’t want to invest thousands of marketing dollars developing a business and have no control because the site can be pulled at any time. Basically, this is a wake up call about letting control of your business be in someone elses hands. The expert felt many will now leave FB.

  2. Mary Brehe

    February 23, 2021 at 9:32 am

    It’s an interesting situation. However, it looks a bit different from my vantage point. Mostly what seems to be missing is Murdoch sites. Also missing is a lot of angry trolls. Facebook is a happier place in my feed at the moment. I still somehow get current events and don’t feel at all out of touch. As I understand it, Facebook doesn’t post the news from news sites, only links to it. Those links drive viewers to the news sites. They should be paying Facebook for referring people to their sites.

    • ajblythe

      February 23, 2021 at 11:06 am

      My understanding was a little different, but I could be wrong! Mine is that you could read the headline and first sentence or two, and many people don’t read further than that, so traffic wasn’t being driven. But as I am not a FB user, I don’t have first hand experience. I feel really sorry for all the non-news sites that have been caught up in this though, regardless of what is happening with news.

  3. Liz A.

    February 23, 2021 at 11:17 am

    Glad Oz is standing its ground on this. FB is a big bully, anyway. Anything that weakens them is good.

  4. Jacqui Murray

    February 23, 2021 at 12:44 pm

    I LOVE YOU GUYS! Take that, FB bullies!

    Sharing…

    • ajblythe

      February 24, 2021 at 10:35 am

      Looks like FB are going to agree to government laws and are planning on reinstating news/ sites again. Win !!

  5. Bug farts

    February 24, 2021 at 1:25 pm

    I think I was already boycotting them. I actually think it was Frito-Lays fault, but who cares.

    I have a FB account, but I cleared everything off of it a few years ago and started to collect the e-mails they sent me. I have over a hundred from them.

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