In the morning of May 7, Beijing time, in March last year, Australia legislated that technology platforms such as Google and Facebook must negotiate with news agencies to pay for news content on their platforms It is reported that Facebook prepared in advance and introduced a set of algorithms, but it affected pages outside Australian publishers due to technical errors.
It is reported that Australia has a vaccination program, but affected by the algorithm, the vaccination related pages of the Australian government and health services have been blocked. Facebook did not inform in advance before the page was affected, and the page was removed before the application process was ready, which was not in line with the process.
The informants submitted documents and testimony to us and Canadian institutions, claiming that Facebook was doing so to put pressure on legislators who voted on the law.
Facebook apologized, said it had corrected the error, and responded that this was not a negotiation strategy. It used a very broad algorithm because the law did not specify what was considered news.