The last time Facebook blocked news in Australia, it was an unmitigated disaster that led a global tech giant to bow to the demands of then PM Scott Morrison, treasurer Josh Frydenberg, and competition regulator Rod Sims. Somewhere around $70 million a year is a lot of money to pay for Mark Zuckerberg to save face.

So the next time push came to shove, Meta, nee Facebook, was a lot more tactical. In Canada, the Facebook and Instagram pages of hundreds of news outlets went dark overnight in August last year in response to the Online News Act, the Great White North’s echo of Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code.