Deal done. Facebook announce an agreement with the Australian government.
After trying to bully tech giant Facebook, the Australian Government has been able to broker a deal with Facebook today around news on it’s platform.
In a statement on Facebook’s Newsroom Facebook has recently announced an agreement to restore News coverage in Australia and confirmed a deal has been agreed between the two parties going forward.
Update on February 22, 2021 at 8:20PM PT: We’re pleased that we’ve been able to reach an agreement with the Australian government and appreciate the constructive discussions we’ve had with Treasurer Frydenberg and Minister Fletcher over the past week. We have consistently supported a framework that would encourage innovation and collaboration between online platforms and publishers. After further discussions, 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. As a result of these changes, we can now work to further our investment in public interest journalism and restore news on Facebook for Australians in the coming days.
An Update on News in Australia: 04:00 GMT, February 23, 2021 ”After further discussions with the Australian government, we have come to an agreement that will allow us to support the publishers we choose to, including small and local publishers. We’re restoring news on Facebook in Australia in the coming days. 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. It’s always been our intention to support journalism in Australia and around the world, and we’ll continue to invest in news globally and resist efforts by media conglomerates to advance regulatory frameworks that do not take account of the true value exchange between publishers and platforms like Facebook.” Campbell Brown, VP, Global News Partnerships.
For more information visit about.fb.com.
What the specifics are from the deal aren’t quite clear yet, but no doubt more information will become available in the coming day.
Now I guess we just wait for our pages to be restored.
More Perth news on SoPerth.com.au.
