Facebook is within its rights to threaten to ban news from its platforms in Australia. But, if it follows through, it will only exacerbate the biggest problem it has created: an epidemic of misinformation that's seriously impacting society | jmcduling
The ACCC's code is designed to address the dominant position Facebook and Google have established in digital advertising markets and the power imbalance they hold over publishers. This has become a big problem for the media sector, but for society at large there are even bigger issues for which the digital giants must take responsibility.
Facebook's role in the explosion of misinformation first became apparent during the 2016 US elections, when the platform allowed fake news to spread on an industrial scale. Nearly four years on, it has proven utterly incapable of neutralising this problem. Arguably, there was a better precedent for how to deal with large and powerful companies whose products are damaging society that the government could have leaned upon. Australia led the charge against Big Tobacco, enforcing plain packaging rules and imposing steep excise taxes on cigarette sales.
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