Dr Suranga Seneviratne, an expert in computer science, social media and cyber security, said: "Facebook's biggest asset is its user base. The more users engage in the platform, the more revenue Facebook makes. The major means of keeping user engagement is through sharing content – user generated or otherwise."
Facebook announced on Thursday morning AEDT that it would restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content in response to the news media code that was passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday night.
Dr Seneviratne said: "In this particular case, Facebook has decided that Australian news content and its subsequent interactions with it don't create much revenue, and they can afford to discontinue it.
"However, we need to understand who might be at a loss because of this unfortunate standoff. I think, at least in the short run, it will be the media companies, especially the small-scale ones."
It happened: Facebook just went off the deep end in Australia. They are blocking *all* news content to Australians, and *no* Australian media can post news.
— Kate Crawford (@katecrawford) February 17, 2021
This is what showdowns between states and platforms look like. It's deplatforming at scale.
https://t.co/UgaTWePO66
"We have to recall the fact that, actually it was media platforms using Facebook as a platform to reach wider audiences. What was visible in Facebook was only the thumbnails, and article highlights, whereas actual paywalled content was still protected."
"This brings us to the fundamental problem whether we are following the right approach here. For me, content sharing happens on other social media platforms too, such as Twitter, Reddit and LinkedIn – shouldn't they be part of the discussion? All these platforms act as means of increasing the media's audience."
"I just heard this morning that both the government and Facebook are open to further discussions - which is definitely the way to go moving forward."
Professor Julie Leask, an academic from the university's Faculty of Medicine and Health, commented: "The timing couldn't be worse. Facebook censors anti-vaccination content 'for public health' at the same time as restricting user's access to local news at the start of a vaccine rollout.
"Three days before our COVID-19 vaccine rollout, Australians using Facebook as their primary source of news can no longer get access to credible information about vaccination from news organisations and some government and public health organisation pages. This is the very time we rely on people accessing vaccine information easily."
Associate Professor Benedetta Brevini, from the university's Department of Media and Communications, said: "In the latest Senate committee hearing, Facebook declared that news items shared or posted on Facebook are only less than 5% of people's news feed.
"But as a political economist of communications, I know very well the incredible benefits that platforms get in aggregating news and information. When I explain this to students, I like to refer to platforms as Digital Lords. They lock their users in, by attracting them into their digital estate.
"The more attractive the content is, the more consumer engagement they have, and in this way, they can extract more and more data from their users. They then use these data to target the same users with more sophisticated advertising."
Prof Brevini, the co-author of Amazon: Understanding a Global Communication Giant, added: "What I would like to say to citizens using Facebook: take this opportunity to stop having your data collected incessantly.
"There is a diversity inquiry debating the unprecedented media concentration in the Australian media system: take this as change to stop supporting big media giants, and instead support smaller publishers who struggle to find their voice in a system controlled by big business."
A fourth academic from the same university, Associate Professor Fiona Martin, an expert on digital journalism, online publishing and social media in the Department of Media and Communications, said: "It will be interesting to monitor the backlash from users. Already we're seeing Australians diversify the types of platform they are using for news and current affairs, such as Reddit, so we want to see where they go instead of Facebook-owned platforms.
"People have always shared news in texts and email – more than via Facebook. The difficulty is, this use is harder to measure.
"It's clear that they didn't follow Google's tactic of negotiating with news companies because they are worried about it setting a precedent for content licensing claims."
