Social media giant ‘Facebook’ has threatened that it will block Australian publishers and individuals from sharing news stories on its platform.
This is in response to a new Australian legislation that allows publishers to charge Facebook for news content.
The company’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand ‘Will Easton’ wrote in a blog post that Facebook would have to choose between “either removing news entirely or accepting a system that lets publishers charge us for as much as they want at a price with no clear limits”.
Google issued an open letter that stated that the proposed Australian law was a potential threat to individual privacy and that it would degrade the quality of its search and YouTube video services.
However, Google did not threaten a cut-off.