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Facebook stripped the pages of domestic and foreign news outlets
for Australians and blocked users of its platform from sharing
any news content on Thursday, saying it had been left with no
choice ahead of the new content laws.
The move, which also erased several state government and
emergency department accounts, as well as nonprofit charity
sites, caused widespread outrage.
Morrison, who blasted Facebook on its own platform for "unfriending"
Australia, said on Friday the leaders of Britain, Canada, France
and India had shown support.
"There is a lot of world interest in what Australia is doing,"
Morrison told reporters in Sydney.
"That is why I invite ... Facebook to constructively engage
because they know that what Australia will do here is likely to
be followed by many other Western jurisdictions."
Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said late on
Thursday his country would adopt the Australian approach as it
crafts its own legislation in coming months.
The Australian law, which will force Facebook and Google to
reach commercial deals with Australian publishers or face
compulsory arbitration, has already been cleared by the federal
lower house and is expected to be passed by the Senate within
the next week.
Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said he had spoken to
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for a second time following the
news blackout.
"We talked through their remaining issues and agreed our
respective teams would work through them immediately. We'll talk
again over the weekend," Frydenberg said in a tweet.
In its statement announcing the move in Australia, Facebook said
the Australian law "misunderstood" its value to publishers.
Frydenberg earlier told the Australian Broadcasting Corp that
"there is something much bigger here at stake than just one or
two commercial deals. This is about Australia's sovereignty".
Facebook and Alphabet Inc owned Google had campaigned together
against the laws with both threatening to withdraw key services
from Australia if the laws took effect.
Google, however, announced a host of preemptive licencing deals
over the past week, including a global agreement with News Corp.
Facebook restored some government pages later on Thursday, but
several charity, nonprofit and even neighbourhood groups
remained dark.
WEB TRAFFIC SLUMPS
Facebook's move had an immediate impact on traffic to Australian
newsites, according to early data from New York-based analytics
firm Chartbeat.
Total traffic to the Australian news sites from various
platforms fell from the day before the ban by around 13% within
the country and by about 30% outside the country, the Chartbeat
data showed.
Similarly, traffic to the Australian news sites from Facebook
alone plummeted from around 21% to about 2% within Australia,
and from around 30% to about 4% outside the country.
News Corp Australasia Executive Chairman Michael Miller,
testifying at an unrelated parliamentary hearing, confirmed the
impact but said the number of Australians visiting the company's
websites directly had risen.
"Definitely referral traffic was nonexistent ... while at the
same time direct traffic to our websites was up in double
digits," he told the inquiry.
Miller also suggested antitrust regulator the Australian
Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) should scrutinise
Facebook's move.
(Reporting by Byron Kaye and Renju Jose; Editing by Sam Holmes
and Jane Wardell)
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