Facebook has reacted badly, as far as users are concerned. Clearly, Facebook programmers are tearing their hair out in implementing the removal of news content and are making silly errors.
For starters, Facebook removed its own content (briefly):
As far as collateral damage goes, the government Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) content has been removed.
I can still see some Channel 9 news content, but there are glitches such as being unable to open the comments.
The Queensland Government Health page has had its content removed.
The non-profit organisation that speaks for people affected by poverty, ACOSS (Australian Council of Social Service) has had its content removed! Is the censorship algorithm looking for the word “news” in page descriptions and acting on it? Check such affected pages to see if that’s the issue.
The sports team AFL Women’s has been impacted too.
Virgin Australia is also gone.
Domino’s pizza isn’t a news outlet. I think Facebook is making a point that almost everything can be “news”, so why not block everything? Perhaps it’s their quality, or boring menu, since Pizza Hut Australia is not blocked.
The Kids’ Cancer Project is one of many such sites affected.
Table of Contents
Overseas content also removed?
Yes, all overseas news outlets show no content, with the BBC UK content somehow slipping through this badly coded filter.
I am not sure why the UK Alzheimer’s Society page has no posts. It’s not a news organisation.
My views on this fiasco
Being a mere user of Facebook (therefore, the product) for a mix of content and discussion, I am merely inconvenienced. I do accept the position of Facebook and Google that they send eye balls to the news websites, therefore they should not need to pay for content. At least Google has made progress by signing up with some news outlets to pay for content, but Facebook has stuffed up. At best, they can improve their “kill switch” for the time other countries follow Australia’s lead and implement similar laws.
I have created personal accounts on other platforms in case I need to abandon Facebook. Some of my friends have left it permanently. I began to do that following two “community standards violation” warnings that I disagreed with. I am simply suggesting to fellow digital marketers that they consider spreading their ad budget across other platforms.
Postscript
Facebook lifted its news ban on 26 February. There was barely any mention of it by anyone on my timeline.