“Unnecessary and wrong”, these are the words used by Treasurer Josh Frydengerb in response to a proposed law by the Australian parliament which would make the “big giants” of the social platforms pay for news content on their websites. (Quifinanza, 2021) It should have been surprising for Australians to wake up in the morning, refresh their feed on Facebook or searching for a news on Google and see that there was anything available. What’s more, if we searched some news coming from Australia in our own social platforms we would be really surprised not finding anything related to that country. THE LEGISLATIVE AIM The Australian parliament is discussing an amendment to the Consumer Act 2010 introducing a new rule imposing to the big digital platforms (Facebook, Google etc...) to pay in order to share the news on their websites. Beginning from February 17 Australians who have a Facebook profile will not be able to see the links of local or international news and people who live abroad can’t access Australian news either. (internazionale.it, 2021) AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT VS FACEBOOK The fight is now between the Australian government and Facebook. The platform in fact has blocked Australian users from sharing or viewing news on the platform. Although apparently irrelevant, this block has caused several issues to the Australian population which has become unable to access key information. The blocking also regarded emergency services, health or policies services used to alert the population in case of natural catastrophes or to inform them on the status of the pandemic. In front of the several complaints of the Australian government Facebook said that the law left it “facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or to stop allowing news content on our services in Australia” and “with a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter”. (BBC, 2021) In order to escape the huge economic losses that would have come as a consequence, both Google and Facebook in the recent days signed payment deals with major Australian publishers in order to be allowed to publish their contents anyway. Actually, as a company’s local managing director William Easton said, the government is penalizing Facebook “for content it didn’t take or ask for”. (BBC, 2021) It is primary interest of the newspaper to have their articles published on Facebook because this increase their visibility, while the platform gain from news is minimal.
FACT-CHECKING OR REGRESS? Can we be sure that the right to proper information spread by the mass media (which might be one of the positive aspects of their use) can be scarified for economic reasons linked to the publisher’s and author’s right on their writings? And, most of all, are we sure that this was what the publishers actually aspired to? The answer of the Australian government claiming the importance of having fact-checking processes assured seems not to be persuasive. Maybe the real question would be: “Are we really sure to be the generation of progress, technology, innovation, open-mindness and opportunities that we claim to be?”
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