Hot point for discussion today is that neither Facebook nor the Australian government was bluffing. Both are now busy blaming each other.
Clearly, Facebook, are more concerned about larger jurisdictions than the Australian government. US, UK and European Union as well as talk in many countries like Brazil and Indonesia. For example, Australia has 14 million Facebook users, and Brazil has over 130 million. To agree with the Australian government could cost Facebook billions of dollars. So Facebook has blocked content from a range of Australia organisations. Besides news, they also stopped a range of sites, e.g. Harvey Norman, Bowel Cancer Australia, University of South Australia and realestate.com.au. This will be a blow to many of these people.
Still, how does it affect us?
The first point is that none of that money Facebook was to pay was intended to go to my clients even though the online availability of news has affected many of them too.
Those who run a Facebook page for their business will need to select where they get their news they share carefully. Currently, Facebook does not tell you that it does not share; it just does not share the page. As many pages are affected beside news sites, you may not know it was not posted to your target market. What you need to do is once you post to Facebook go back into your personal page and see if it was shared with them. If it was not, then you need to search for a Facebook allowed site with similar information.
It will affect many of the online promotions until the advertisers adjust.
Other then that can you see any effect? I can't so let us move on.
Update:
This video I think shows well Facebook's position.
