Technically Speaking, Why Did Facebook Ban News in Australia?

On February 18th, a couple of weeks ago, Australians woke up to find that they could not access any news sources through Facebook. Early that morning, the tech giant banned news on the Australian section of its platform, in a response to the New Media Bargaining Code.

This was part of an ongoing battle in the country, where news and media publishers were demanding payment from Google and Facebook for using their content. To explore this issue more in depth, we spoke to Peter Lews — Director, Centre for Responsible Technology and Director, Essential Media. He helps us understand the context behind this move by Facebook, what the government is doing now and what it means for global big tech regulation