Finally, after a weekend of “intensive negotiations,” Facebook lifted the ban, said Mr. Frydenberg.
“We are satisfied that the Australian government has agreed to a number of changes and guarantees that address our core concerns about allowing commercial deals that recognize the value our platform provides to publishers relative to the value we receive from them,” said William Easton, Facebook’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, in a statement.
Facebook profited from Australian news publishers
According to Australian lawmakers, Facebook limited the profits of news publishers and heavily profited from their news content. The platform allegedly made money on behalf of news publishers who publish content on the social media platform. This resulted in an Australian counter-attack to impose stricter laws on Facebook.
“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,” Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of news, said in a statement.
