Newspaper closures and job losses have hit areas outside Australian cities hard. Removing news from Facebook will further restrict the choices of people with already limited access to news.
Australians woke to empty Facebook news feeds on Thursday, after the social media giant blocked all media content in a surprise escalation of a dispute with the government, which could be a test for the future of online publishing worldwide.
The move was swiftly criticised by news producers, politicians and human rights advocates, particularly as it became clear that official health pages, emergency safety warnings and welfare networks had all been scrubbed from the site along with news.
“Facebook’s actions to unfriend Australia today, cutting off essential information services on health and emergency services, were as arrogant as they were disappointing,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison wrote on his own Facebook page, using the vernacular for cutting ties with another person on the site.
THE £1MILLION money laundering trial of a director of one of Belfast s most famous bars may have to be held at the Waterfront Hall due to Covid-19.
The possibility was revealed at Belfast Crown Court during a brief hearing of the case of Elizabeth Lily Mulholland, who is accused, along with eight others, of a construction industry VAT fraud.
The 66-year-old is one of the directors of Kelly s Cellars, one of the city s oldest bars and famed for its links to the United Irishmen.
Mulholland, of the Cavehill Road in north Belfast, is charged with converting criminal property valued at £1,168,060 between June 2010 and March 2012.