Australian PM Morrison says Facebook back to negotiations

Facebook’s move to stop Australians from sharing news on its platform also removed the accounts of state government and emergency department

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Saturday that Facebook is back at the negotiating table, after the tech giant blocked news on its platform in the country this week.

Facebook’s abrupt move to stop Australians from sharing news on its platform and removing the pages of news outlets also removed the accounts of state government and emergency department, resulting outrage across the country.

The company has “tentatively friended us again,” Morrison told a news conference in Sydney. What I’m pleased about it that Facebook is back at the table again, he said.

However, the tech giant has not indicated any change in its opposition to a proposed law publicly, which requires social media platforms to pay for links to news content.

Australia’s Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Friday he had spoken with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and further talks were expected over the weekend. However, it was not clear whether those talks have happened.

Countries like Canada have expressed interest in taking similar action, and Australia’s vows to press ahead with the landmark legislation could set a global precedent.

The Australian law has cleared the lower house of parliament and is expected to be passed by the Senate within the next week. This would force Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google to reach commercial deals with Australian publishers or face compulsory arbitration.

Simon Milner, Facebook’s Asia-Pacific policy director of policy for the Asia-Pacific region, was quoted on Saturday as telling the Sydney Morning Herald the company had three main objections to the legislation.

Facebook objects to being barred from discriminating between different news outlets that ask for money, to arbitration models that allow an independent body to select one payment over another, and to the obligation to enter commercial negotiations with Australian media companies, Milner said.

Australia’s legislation is being watched keenly across the world.

Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said on Thursday his country would adopt the Australian approach as it crafts its own legislation in coming months.

Google has announced host of preemptive licensing deals over the past week, including a global agreement with News Corp. It initially threatened to close its search engine in Australia.

According to early data from New York-based analytics firm Chartbeat, Facebook’s move had an immediate impact on traffic to Australian new sites.

Within Australia, total traffic to the Australian news sites from various platforms fell by around 13% from the day before the ban.