Australians discovered that it wasn't just news that was missing. Pages for state health departments, emergency services and even the Bureau of Meteorology, providing weather data in the middle of fire season was left blank
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - FEBRUARY 18: In this photo illustration a message is seen on Facebook mobile, on February 18, 2021 in Melbourne, Australia. Facebook has banned publishers and users in Australia from posting and sharing news content as the Australian government prepares to pass laws that will require social media companies to pay news publishers for sharing or using content on their platforms.
Image: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images
SYDNEY — A digitally savvy nation woke up Thursday to a shock on Facebook: The news was gone.
The social media giant had decided to block journalism in Australia rather than pay the companies that produce it under legislation now before Parliament, angering a country of arguers who had grown used to Facebook as a regular forum for politics or culture.
And then Australians discovered it wasn’t just those staples that were missing. Pages for state health departments and emergency services were also wiped clean. The Bureau of Meteorology, providing weather data in the middle of fire season — blank. An opposition candidate running for office in Western Australia, just a few weeks from an election — every message, gone.
Even pages for nonprofits providing information to domestic violence victims fell into the Facebook dragnet, along with those for organizations that work with the poor and vulnerable.
“It’s quite scary when you see it happen,” said Elaine Pearson, the Australia director at Human Rights Watch, which lost its own Facebook posts with in-depth reports on deaths in Australian police custody, on the coup in Myanmar and on many other topics.
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