Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell says the government is privately confident Facebook will back down from its ban of Australian news.
The tech giant’s move comes as hostilities grew over the government’s media bargaining code, through which it was trying to force tech giants to pay media outlets for using news content in a bid to sustain the future of journalism.
Facebook said it failed to strike a solution with the government because the law fundamentally misunderstood the relationship between the platform and publishers.
“I guess in terms of their assessment on that, they are partly looking at the example of Google, who threatened to leave then backed off and started doing deals with media companies,” Mr Clennell said.
“The government is also relying on a public backlash against big tech convincing Facebook to change its mind on this.
“There are two things Facebook want changed in the legislation as I understand it: they want the requirement for a final arbiter if there is no deal between a tech giant and a media company lifted and they want the power to pick which news sources appear on their site; the government restricts that in their legislation.”
