Facebook has blocked many sources of news in Australia for their users.
A number of sites simply report “no posts” and thus no news feed. Although the actual newspapers have their own sites that are still available and will continue to be, many people get all of their news from Facebook and so are at the moment uninformed.
The Facebook pages that are blocked also concerningly include state police, health sites and even the Bureau of Meteorology. At this stage, the spread seems overly broad with commercial and charity pages blocked from new postings, perhaps any site that says “news”.
The Australian government is enacting legislation that would require digital companies, including Facebook and Google, to pay for news content.
Although the majority of these news stories can be obtained from their home sites the blocking of any media and news reporting by anyone is very worrying. It could be that this is Facebook’s way of saying that if you want us to pay for your journalism then we are not going to play and going away.
If news, especially reliable, researched and accurate news is to be developed then anyone who uses it should pay for it in some way, as I and many do with a subscription to several physical and online newspapers.
Dennis Fitzgerald.
Take it slow
Re Jason Leitch saying there is a “long journey” out of lockdown.
The main thing is we now are moving towards the exit instead of going around in circles. A more positive approach is now needed by those leading this. A phased reduction in restrictions is needed now to get the economy moving again and to improve folks’ morale.
BC.
Parking fine
Re Aberdeenshire Council reintroducing parking charges.
Car parking charges are a source of income to councils, along with business rates etc.
Without these sources of income the only other options would be: Increase council tax, increase business rates, reduce non-essential services. I am not saying the timing is not unfortunate, however, this is a no-win scenario for cash-strapped councils.
JL.
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