CitizenVectron Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 Facebook Deliberately Caused Havoc in Australia to Influence New Law, Whistleblowers Say WWW.WSJ.COM When Facebook blocked news pages last year to pre-empt Australian legislation that would force it to pay for content, it also took down hospitals, emergency services and charities. The company says that was inadvertent; whistleblowers allege it was a negotiating tactic. Quote Facebook documents and testimony filed to U.S. and Australian authorities by whistleblowers allege that the social-media giant deliberately created an overly broad and sloppy process to take down pages—allowing swaths of the Australian government and health services to be caught in its web just as the country was launching Covid vaccinations. Quote The goal, according to the whistleblowers and documents, was to exert maximum negotiating leverage over the Australian Parliament, which was voting on the first law in the world that would require platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay news outlets for content. Quote Despite saying it was targeting only news outlets, the company deployed an algorithm for deciding what pages to take down that it knew was certain to affect more than publishers, according to the documents and people familiar with the matter. It didn't notify affected pages in advance they would be blocked or provide a system for them to appeal once they were. And it worked: Quote After five days that caused disorder throughout the country, Australia's Parliament amended the proposed law to the degree that, a year after its passage, its most onerous provisions haven't been applied to Facebook or its parent company, Meta Platforms Inc. Quote "We landed exactly where we wanted to," wrote Campbell Brown, Facebook's head of partnerships, who pressed for the company's aggressive stance, in a congratulatory email to her team minutes after the Australian Senate voted to approve the watered-down bill at the end of February 2021. Quote Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg chimed in with congratulations as well, with Ms. Sandberg praising the "thoughtfulness of the strategy" and "precision of execution." Burn their buildings down and criminally charge everyone in middle-management and up who was even vaguely aware. Facebook and Meta need to be destroyed. The tl;dr: of this is: Australia: "You're going to need to pay news companies if you want to show their articles" Facebook: "No. Instead, we'll take down articles from those companies so we don't have to pay" Facebook then created a net so wide (on purpose) that it knowingly also took down government news and instructions about the COVID-19 pandemic. It provided no notification that these posts were being hidden, and provided no way to appeal Australia watered down the bill, meaning Facebook does not have to pay news companies 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brucoe Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 I'm not surprised. Not since its inception have I ever seen Facebook as a platform for good. They've done everything possible to show exactly that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skillzdadirecta Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 Facebook is straight up SHIT. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uaarkson Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 Serious question - when do we start to see people trying to assassinate billionaires and CEOs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 Fuck Zuck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firewithin Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 6 minutes ago, Uaarkson said: Serious question - when do we start to see people trying to assassinate billionaires and CEOs? do you think they would ever be in the same place as the poors to be put in a position like that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chairslinger Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zaku3 Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 2 minutes ago, Uaarkson said: Serious question - when do we start to see people trying to assassinate billionaires and CEOs? A long time. People as a whole don't realize how much power these people have. So going off my previous post things would need to get so bad people would actually revolt. Until then or more people realize how much power CEOs their primary target would be opposing supporters or political assassinations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comet Posted May 5, 2022 Share Posted May 5, 2022 This is why when a Facebook recruiter reached out to me I just laughed and hung up. Disgusting company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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