CANBERRA: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called for curbing Facebook's influence, saying that his government will not be intimidated by Facebook blocking news feeds to users, in response to the government's proposed media bargaining code.
"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 said.
The pages of health departments, governments, fire services and the Bureau of Meteorology were also wiped, the Xinhua news agency reported.
In a post on Facebook on Thursday, Morrison vowed that his government would not be "intimidated" by the move. "These actions will only confirm the concerns that an increasing number of countries are expressing about the behaviour of BigTech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them," added Morrison.
The lower house of the Australian parliament, the House of Representatives, passed the legislation on Wednesday night, paving the way for the Senate to pass it into law.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Friday morning that he had spoken to Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, about the news ban for the second time in two days. "We talked through their remaining issues and agreed our respective teams would work through them immediately," he said on Twitter.
Greg Hunt, minister for health, said that he was concerned that it could lead to the spread of irresponsible misinformation as Australia prepares to begin administering Covid-19 vaccines next week.
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