Curtains For Facebook?

This is how Facebook will begin to end. Do it!:

Facebook’s dramatic escalation makes more sense if the debate over the Australian code is a proxy war in a bigger global fight over how Facebook should be regulated. Facebook made clear that its message was meant for American ears when it gave its only interview about the threatened blockade to NBC News, declining all media requests in Australia. Globally, Facebook has avoided strong regulatory intrusion on its relationship with news publishers till now, partly by proactively striking deals with them to allay concerns about its market power, like the news tab it launched in the U.S. in 2019. But Facebook’s red line is now clear: Come for us like Australia is trying to do, and we’ll fight you.

That the code is not the main game here is of little comfort to Australians, who will bear the brunt of this escalation if Facebook does indeed ban news here. And there is every reason to think that it will. Australian officials have doubled down on the code in the wake of Facebook’s statement. For Facebook’s strong stance against the Australian proposal to resonate globally, it will need to follow through on its threat.

It’s strange to imagine what Facebook would look like if it banned news. On Nov. 3, Australians could log on to Facebook and not see a single news story about the Trump-Biden election. That’s not to say they wouldn’t be able to figure out the result (whenever the U.S. has one) from the content they see—individuals will still be able to post about the news without links, after all—but it won’t be the important facts researched, contextualized, and vetted by professional newsgathering outfits. Instead, it will be opinion and invective, memes, even misinformation and conspiracy. When Facebook is the primary lens through which many people access the internet, the impact on Australia’s information ecosystem starts to look pretty scary.