Facebook is lifting its ban on sharing news articles in Australia after the country’s government agreed to amend a proposed law that would require internet companies to pay news publishers for their content.
The amendments, announced today by the Australian government, includes one that could exempt Facebook from the proposed media payment law. Specifically, the government will take into account if an internet company has “made a significant contribution to the sustainability of the Australian news industry” when deciding if it will fall under the media payment law.
That’s good news for Facebook. The social network already has a journalism partnership program in place to support and even pay media publishers in some circumstances.
“After further discussions with the Australian government, we have come to an agreement that will allow us to support the publishers we choose to, including small and local publishers,” Campbell Brown, Facebook VP of Global News Partnerships, said in a statement.
At the same time, Facebook says it has no legal obligation in Australia to serve the news to its users. Hence, the social network can pull the plug on news sharing again if it disagrees with the media payment law’s enforcement.
“Going forward, the government has clarified we will retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook so that we won’t automatically be subject to a forced negotiation,” Brown added.
Facebook has been objecting to the media payment proposal because it assumes Facebook is like Google, and is intentionally aggregating news articles to share with users. The social network argues that media publishers and users voluntarily post news articles on its platform, which can then be displayed to millions of potential readers for free.
“Last year Facebook generated approximately 5.1 billion free referrals to Australian publishers worth an estimated AU$407 million,” the social network said last week. On the flip side, Facebook said it would gain little financial value from paying media outlets, citing how news articles account for “less than 4% of the content people see in their News Feed.”
Nevertheless, Facebook's decision to block news sharing in the country caused outrage from local users, international lawmakers, and media publishers. However, other critics have pointed out Australia's media payment law is likely designed to benefit the media empire of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
Facebook plans on restoring access to news sharing in Australia in the coming days. If the company does end up falling under the media payment law, then—via a new amendment announced on Tuesday—Facebook will have two months to negotiate deals with news publishers about paying them. If the deadline passes without a resolution, then the government will become involved through a "final arbitration" process.