“DELETE THE APP”

Former Facebook CEO unloads on the media giant’s sad decision to block news in Australia – and says Mark Zuckerberg is all about the money and the power

• Ex-Facebook Australia and NZ CEO Stephen Scheeler blasted the news ban
• He encouraged Aussies to delete the app to send a message to the company
• Mr. Scheeler said CEO Mark Zuckerberg is motivated by money and power
• Facebook from Thursday blocked Australians from reading and sharing news

By blocking and sharing news, also blocks sharing important crime prevention information. This blocks sharing not only from news sources but also from SCARS and this website.

Reprinted from the DailyMail

The former CEO of Facebook has slammed Mark Zuckerberg’s “sad” decision to block news in Australia while encouraging Aussies to delete the app out of protest.

The US social media giant has infuriated Australians after blocking them from reading and sharing local news in response to a world-first law to make tech giants pay media companies for the content they use.

From Thursday, when Australians went to reliable Facebook news accounts they were met with a message saying ‘no posts’ were available. Even overseas news was hidden.

Stephen Scheeler, former Facebook Australia and New Zealand chief executive officer, said Facebook’s controversial move ‘looks and feels ugly’ and blasted CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s motivations.

It shouldn’t have happened. But unfortunately it did. But there’s no good answers. If you’re Rio Tinto and you blow up an Aboriginal sacred site, there are consequences, people lose their jobs. But at Facebook nobody ever loses their jobs,”  he told The Australian.

‘I’m a proud ex-Facebooker, but over the years I get more and more exasperated. For Facebook and Mark it’s too much about the money, and the power, and not about the good.

“Imagine if a Chinese company for example had done this, we would be up in arms. All Australians should be quite alarmed by this.”

Mr Scheeler, who resigned from Facebook in 2017, encouraged Australians to delete the app to send a stern message to the company.

If you wanted a glaring example of why Facebook needs more regulation, this is it’
Former Australia and New Zealand Facebook CEO Stephen Scheeler
He also fears the move could lead to a rise in ‘fake news’ and ‘misinformation’ on the platform.

“I’m sad for Facebook in a way, but if you wanted a glaring example of why Facebook needs more regulation, this is it,”  he said.

Mr Scheeler, who has since opened his own consultancy firm, said Facebook is now more powerful than the world’s greatest governments.

“There’s no ballot box where you can vote against Mark Zuckerberg. And in fact, even if you’re a Facebook shareholder, your vote carries no weight,”  he said.

The Government’s proposed law which so unsettled Facebook would create an arbitration panel to set a binding price for news in cases where tech giants failed to reach deals with media companies whose original journalism they linked to.

Facebook executives feared giving in to the laws could set a global precedent where it was forced to pay to distribute news.

But now the news is banned altogether Down Under and media scholars fear disinformation will now run rampant on Facebook.

Google Threatened To Do It Too!

Google had also threatened to pull its search engine from Australia in response to the legislation. But the search giant backflipped in recent weeks, striking deals with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Nine Entertainment.

Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has insisted the government will not back down and said the publisher could either abide by Australia’s laws or leave the country.

The law passed the Australian House of Representatives on Wednesday night and looks set to pass the Australian Senate within days.

Mr. Scheeler, who resigned from Facebook in 2017, encouraged Australians to delete the app to send a stern message to the company
Scott Morrison on Thursday afternoon said the government won’t be intimidated by the tech giant.

“Facebook’s actions to unfriend Australia today, cutting off essential information services on health and emergency services, were as arrogant as they were disappointing,”  he wrote on his own Facebook account.

“These actions will only confirm the concerns that an increasing number of countries are as expressing about the behaviour of BigTech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them. “

“We will not be intimidated by BigTech seeking to pressure our Parliament as it votes on our important News Media Bargaining Code.”

“Just as we weren’t intimidated when Amazon threatened to leave the country and when Australia drew other nations together to combat the publishing of terrorist content on social media platforms.”

A release from the social media behemoth says:

“The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content.”

“It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. “

“With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter.”

It adds: “We were prepared to launch Facebook News in Australia and significantly increase our investments with local publishers, however, we were only prepared to do this with the right rules in place.”

Facebook said Australian users will not be able read or share news content on the platform, and Australian news publishers will be restricted from posting or sharing content on Facebook pages.

We do not know what information our Australian readers can see on our SCARS Facebook Pages, which is why we are reprinting this article here for their access.

Australia’s two largest over-the-air TV stations, Seven West Media and Nine Entertainment, have already reportedly struck deals with Google collectively worth $60million a year.

News Corp said it would receive “significant payments” from Google in its three-year agreement, which wraps in the Times and the Sun newspapers in the UK, the Wall Street Journal and New York Post in the US, and Sky News TV channel in Australia.

So, obviously, there is room to talk and deals can be reached!

Thursday’s news ban was spectacularly botched with organizations as diverse as health departments, domestic violence charities, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and the country’s main source of weather information, the Bureau of Meteorology, banned from posting.  This could have led and perhaps did lead, to significant hardship and potential harm to people in Australia.

Facebook said that was a mistake – but blamed the broad definition of news in the forthcoming laws.

“The actions we’re taking are focused on restricting publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content,” a spokeswoman said.

Source

To Learn What Is Going On

We recommend that you visit “The Australian” here: Facebook | The Australian

CHANGES TO NEWS IN AUSTRALIA

• Facebook has restricted publishers and social media users in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content.
• What does this mean for Australian news organizations?
• Australian news organizations will be restricted from sharing or posting any content on Facebook Pages
• Admins will still be able to access Page insights and Creator Studio on their Facebook pages
• Facebook said they will continue to provide access to other standard services, including data tools and CrowdTangle
• What does this mean for international news organizations?
• International news organizations can still post on Facebook but Australian users will not be able to see the content or share it
• What does this mean for Australian Facebook users?
• Australian Facebook users will not be able to view or share Australian or international news content
• What does this mean for international Facebook users?
• International Facebook users will not be able to view or share Australian news content on Facebook

If You Want To Delete Your Facebook Profile?

We recommend that you take these steps first!

• Do not delete your profile – suspend it. That way if things change you can restart it with nothing lost.
• Suspending your profile does almost the same thing politically as deleting it – it removes you from Facebook’s roles of “active users” – they see this as a loss of users, just like if they were deleted.
• Backup your profile – this is a feature under SETTINGS – it puts everything, including photos in a zip file that you can download.
• Remember – suspending or deleting your profile tuns off Messenger too!

A Better Idea

• Remove the Facebook app from your phone, and keep the Messenger app.
• Before you do – lock down all the privacy settings on your profile – make yourself invisible (“Only Me”)

SCARS Commentary

Obviously, this is just more “thuggery” by Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg.  This only serves to emphasize the fact that all Big Tech needs to be regulated for the public good! We hope that the United States and Europe will follow the courage shown by Australia because this will help save community newspapers and local news reporting that are being systematically destroyed by Big Media too!

Whatever you decide to do, we wish you luck!

TAGS: SCARS, Information About Scams, Anti-Scam, Scams, Scammers, Fraudsters, Cybercrime, Crybercriminals, Romance Scams, Scam Victims, Online Fraud, Online Crime Is Real Crime, Scam Avoidance, Facebook Scams, Facebook Is The Problem, Social Media Scams, Big Tech, Fake Profiles On Facebook, Facebook Censorship