Australia’s regulatory feud with Facebook turns ugly; The future of mass claims in the UK

MLex Market Insight

News

4.9 • 9 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Facebook users in Australia will no longer have access to news in their news feed. In a dramatic turn of events this week, the US-based tech giant decided that Australia’s new mandatory code of conduct forcing platforms to pay for news content meant including media content was no longer viable. If the move was attempt to force the government to back down, it failed, with Canberra as determined as ever to push ahead with its landmark legislation. Meanwhile, in the UK, consumer champions competing to sue some of the world’s biggest investment banks over currency-market rigging are now waiting for a court decision that could shed some light on the future of mass claims.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello there. Welcome back to Mlex's podcast with the week's most pressing news from the world of regulatory affairs. My name is James Panicki, and it's great to have your company again. In just a few minutes
0:22.0	time, we'll be crossing to Sydney for the very latest dramatic developments in the Australian
0:27.2	government's feud with Facebook. And after that, we'll touch base with the UK to talk about
0:32.8	the status of competition class actions in the country. We'll be chatting with Simon Zakaria in the second
0:39.6	half of today's podcast. First up, though, Facebook users in Australia will no longer have access
0:46.1	to news in their news feed. The US-based company has decided that, with Australia's new
0:52.1	mandatory code of conduct for platforms just days away,
0:55.7	providing local users with news just wasn't worth the hassle and certainly not the cash that
1:01.6	Facebook would have been required to hand over to the publishers. But Facebook's dramatic exit from
1:07.4	news turned into a bit of a train wreck this week. Laurel Henning is a senior M-Mex reporter
1:13.0	based in Sydney and for the past couple of years covering digital regulation has been her
1:18.1	bread and butter and she joins us now. Okay, Laurel, first up, remind us why Facebook has done
1:25.5	what it has done. Well, while Facebook says it's invested and is investing in
1:31.3	journalism around the world, it does not want to be forced, James, into commercial negotiations
1:37.3	by the Australian government with Australian news publishers. And that is clearly what it's going to be
1:42.9	forced to do with this under this
1:45.4	Code of Conduct, which we should remind listeners has not actually gone through the Australian
1:49.0	Parliament yet. But you point out in your analysis that Facebook's purging of news was something
1:55.7	of a debacle, wasn't it, because of all of the non-news pages that got caught up in the crossfire?
2:01.6	That's right. So despite Facebook saying it would be withdrawing news content,
2:07.1	it would be restricting publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian
2:10.7	and international news, that wasn't just the content that disappeared on Thursday morning, James.
	...

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