Staff told to leave no written record of ‘intent’ to takedown Australian pages
Meta’s sweeping news ban across Australia in early 2021, which saw the Facebook pages of non-profits and government entities also shut down, was a deliberate ploy by the tech giant’s top brass to gain leverage during heated negotiations over an impending media payment law.
The U.S.-based Whistleblower Aid revealed on May 5 that it had filed disclosures with the U.S. Department of Justice and Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on behalf of former Facebook employees.
A press statement said the social media firm had deliberately “over blocked” critical Australian Facebook pages belonging to emergency departments and even weather bureaus for five days between Feb. 17 to Feb. 22, 2021.
The move was an attempt to secure favourable amendments to the impending News Media Bargaining Code, which would have compelled Facebook (and Google) to enter discussions with local media outlets to negotiate payment rates for content.
The tech giant had warned months earlier that it could be compelled to simply remove news sites in response to the law; however, when the ban was actioned, it happened with no prior notification and went over and above blocking news sites.
Facebook soon after said it would reverse the ban, but did not apologize or claim responsibility.
“They (Meta) used that power in a way that threatened public safety during fire season and in the midst of a global pandemic in order to coerce the Australian Parliament,” according to Libby Liu, CEO of Whistleblower Aid. “This wasn’t just an example of a corporate actor behaving recklessly; Facebook intentionally put lives at risk to protect its bottom line.”
Some organisations hit by the ban included the World Wildlife Foundation Australia, St Vincent’s Health, Suicide Prevention Australia, the Australian Medical Association, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and Safe Steps Family Violence Response Center.
Further, Facebook has been accused of sidelining standard practice—which could have prevented the blocking of non-news-related pages—to trigger a “full rollout” of the ban within hours.
“Facebook did not develop or utilize lists of sensitive accounts that it should take care not to block for reasons of public health or safety and did not create any formal appeals process for sites that were improperly blocked,” the statement said.
“Facebook managers told lower-level staff not to make any written record of the ‘intent’ of the takedown,” it continued.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, the tech giant did not use an established database of news publishers and instead created a new “algorithmic news classifier” that would block any page if over 60 percent of the content posted on it was news.
The leadership team, including founder Mark Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Campbell Brown, head of news partnerships, sent congratulatory messages to staff after the news ban.
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