Facebook's brazen attempt to crush regulations in Australia may backfire
Elizabeth Dwoskin and Gerrit De Vynck, The Washington Post
Feb. 18, 2021
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Facebook's decision to flip a switch on Wednesday night - causing Australia's news industry to go dark on the social network - was a remarkable flexing of power by one of the world's mightiest companies.
The social media giant said it was backed into a corner by a new law there, which requires Internet companies to pay news publishers for their content and for those rates to be set by a government arbitrator. Instead of comply, Facebook has blocked all news content on its site in Australia.