As RPS did not mention about this on it’s news page, thought I’d start some discussion on it.
Last year the government of my country (Australia) proposed changes to media laws to force overseas companies to pay for news content on their sites. Google initially completely cracked it and threatened to block all Google services, before backing down and is now in the process of putting together deals with TV media networks here.
Facebook on the other hand as of yesterday has blocked all news content from appearing on Australian user’s news feeds. Not only that, but it also blocked a whole heap of non news pages, like government emergency pages, neighbourhood watch pages etc etc.
And what is all the fuss about? Well this video explains it best:
Essentially their taking 53 cents in every dollar made from a news story when displayed on their site. When asked to pay for displaying it on their site, they have refused saying that their a US company so shouldn’t have to abide by the laws of another country. Well if your going to a run a service in another country then you have to abide by it’s laws to operate there.
Article on the topic: