Facebook Reverses Australian Ban on News Sharing

Facebook has announced that it will restore the ability for users in Australia to share news content on the social platform, following changes to the country's media code.

facebook
The company banned all news sharing last week in response to a proposed Media Bargaining Law, which aims to level the playing field between Australian news media businesses and digital platforms in terms of bargaining power.

The law would allow Australian news publications to negotiate for fair payment for their journalist's work, effectively forcing companies like Facebook and Google to pay for news content.

However, Facebook said on Tuesday that it had been reassured by discussions over the weekend with the Australian government about negotiated amendments to the bargaining code, adding that it was "satisfied" with the agreement they had reached.

"After further discussions, we are satisfied that the Australian government has agreed to a number of changes and guarantees that address our core concerns about allowing commercial deals that recognize the value our platform provides to publishers relative to the value we receive from them," Facebook's VP of global news partnerships, Campbell Brown, said in a statement.

"Going forward, the government has clarified we will retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook so that we won't automatically be subject to a forced negotiation. We have come to an agreement that will allow us to support the publishers we choose to, including small and local publishers," Brown said.

Australian authorities plan to introduce further amendments to the proposed law so that the government may not apply the code to Facebook if it can demonstrate a "significant contribution" to local journalism, and a two-month mediation period before enforced arbitration comes into effect, allowing parties additional time to reach a private deal.

Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg had told him the ban would end "in the coming days", following the talks. "Facebook has re-friended Australia," he told reporters on Tuesday.

Despite Facebook's reversal, its original decision to ban news shared on its platform attracted negative headlines about the company around the world, and prompted other governments to consider moves to curtail its power. Canada has said that it is considering similar changes in its media law, while British politicians also called voiced concerns about Facebook's actions in Australia.

However, Facebook did receive support from some quarters when it complained that Australia's proposed law had been badly drafted. For instance, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the web, said he was concerned that forcing companies to pay for certain content could make the internet "unworkable."

"Specifically, I am concerned that that code risks breaching a fundamental principle of the web by requiring payment for linking between certain content online," Berners-Lee said.

Popular Stories

M5 MacBook Pro

Apple Announces New 14-Inch MacBook Pro With M5 Chip

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models. In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB. Like...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

Apple Debuts New iPad Pro With M5 Chip, Faster Charging, and More

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips. The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
maxresdefault

Here's Everything Apple Announced Today

Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below. MacBook Pro M5...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Vision Pro M5 Announcement

Apple Updates Vision Pro With M5 Chip, Dual Knit Band, and 120Hz Support

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:14 am PDT by
Apple today updated the Vision Pro headset with its next-generation M5 chip for faster performance, and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band. The M5 chip has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and we have confirmed the Vision Pro still has 16GB of RAM. With the M5 chip, the Vision Pro offers faster performance and longer battery life compared...
iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
MacBook Pro M5 Screen

New MacBook Pro Does Not Include a Charger in the Box in Europe

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:59 am PDT by
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip does not include a charger in the box in European countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, and others, according to Apple's online store. In the U.S. and all other countries outside of Europe, the new MacBook Pro comes with Apple's 70W USB-C Power Adapter, but European customers miss out....
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

New 14-Inch MacBook Pro Has Two Key Upgrades Beyond the M5 Chip

Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump. First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
airpods max 2024 colors

AirPods Max 2: Everything We Know So Far

Tuesday October 14, 2025 8:43 am PDT by
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version? According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...
macbook pro blue

Apple's M5 MacBook Pro Imminent: What to Expect

Tuesday October 14, 2025 4:35 pm PDT by
Apple is going to launch a new version of the MacBook Pro as soon as tomorrow, so we thought we'd go over what to expect from Apple's upcoming Mac. M5 Chip The MacBook Pro will be one of the first new devices to use the next-generation M5 chip, which will replace the M4 chip. The M5 is built on TSMC's more advanced 3-nanometer process, and it will bring speed and efficiency improvements. ...

Top Rated Comments

obamtl Avatar
61 months ago

What is a Facebook?
I think it's called The Facebook. It's this thing in Ivy league and other top universities that allows students to see what their friends are up to on campus and coordinate their study and social lives.

Oh wait... it's morphed into this cancerous monster that uses complex algorithms to maximise the amount of attention users give to a number of apps, so 'content' can be interspersed with ads, and Facebook can use those ads to ensure sustained micro-changes to users behaviours and make tons of money by selling changes to users' behaviours to the highest bidder, thus undermining the very fabric of society.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bLackjackj Avatar
61 months ago
Who the hell cares? Jump in a browser & hit the News sites directly ??‍♂️
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ian87w Avatar
61 months ago
Imo people should be concerned how Facebook, and even Google, can influence how journalism worked by the nature of playing with how people get the news (algorithm and search).
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
steve09090 Avatar
61 months ago
It was great while it lasted...
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ds2000 Avatar
61 months ago
What is a Facebook?
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nikusak Avatar
61 months ago
Yes, Facebook might suck but this is such a bizarre law.

Facebook has to pay even if the author herself shares the link in Facebook.

It’s not like Facebook is showing the full article for free - it’s just a link with a short snippet.

Google has to pay for displaying links to newspapers in the search results. Ignore your opinion of Google, whatever it is, and think about that for a while.

They can’t refuse from showing this “content”. They have to show and they have to pay. For links.

When will someone come up with the idea that sites like MacRumors must start paying the newspapers they quote and link to?

I mean, why not? What’s different?

This is a good reading about all this:

https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/2/17/paying-for-news
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)