Facebook news ban hits emergency services and government health departments

Dozens of major health, corporate, sporting and charity Facebook pages have been blocked after being caught up in the social media giant’s decision to ban news publishers in response to the Morrison government’s proposed media bargaining laws.

The Queensland, South Australian and ACT Health Facebook pages were wiped, leaving Facebook users without access to local health information about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Large corporations, charities and peak sporting bodies were also affected by the tech titan’s decision.

Major emergency services including the Bureau of Meteorology and Fire and Rescue NSW headline the government agencies that were caught up in Facebook’s move.

But an uneven spread of pages were blocked and still live.

Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital and St Vincent’s Hospital were stripped of their content, while St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney remained unaffected. Two of Sydney’s local health district pages were blocked.

NSW Health and Victoria’s Department of Health Facebook pages remained live, while information from the blocked Facebook pages was still visible by visiting individual websites.

Crisis and domestic violence services — including Suicide Prevention Australia, 1800Respect and Break the Silence Against Domestic Violence — disappeared, potentially leaving at-risk people without critical safety services.

In a statement a Facebook spokesperson said government pages “should not be impacted by today’s announcement”.

“As the law does not provide clear guidance on the definition of news content, we have taken a broad definition in order to respect the law as drafted,” the spokesperson said.

“However, we will reverse any pages that are inadvertently impacted.”

By Thursday afternoon, the pages of some government bodies had been restored, including ACT Health, Queensland Health, Sydney local health districts and the Bureau of Meteorology. On some, posts were hidden.

Belinda Barnet, senior lecturer in media at Swinburne University, suspects the patchy nature of the bans could be because Facebook is using an “algorithmic approach” to implementing its policy.

“It may be having trouble distinguishing between government organisations and news outlets,” Dr Barnet said. “They are being detected or flagged as news that’s now banned.

“It could certainly be because the pages were categorised a certain way and the algorithms Facebook is experimenting with today are picking them up as news.”

The pages of peak sporting bodies such as Cricket Australia, Rugby Australia, AFL Women, as well as sports streaming services Optus Sport and Foxtel, were also impacted.

Electricity company AGL, retailer Harvey Norman and insurance giant QBE were others whose pages were down.

Surf Life Saving Australia, The Medical Journal of Australia, Women NSW and Victoria’s Department of Education and Training also could not be viewed.

The pages for charities and not-for-profit organisations — including Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, Save the Children, Diversity Council Australia, the Australian Council of Social Service and MS Research Australia — were also blank, but were back up on Tuesday night with no posts.

Large arts organisations such as the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the International Comedy Festival were among cultural institutions hit by the ban but were back up on Tuesday night with no posts.

By Thursday evening, the pages of some of the other sites had also been restored, many without posts, including Fire and Rescue NSW, 1800Respect, Break the Silence Against Domestic Violence, Cricket Australia, AFL women, Optus, Foxtel, Harvey Norman, Surf Life Saving Australia, The Medical Journal of Australia and Women NSW.

Sites still down included Suicide Prevention Australia and Rugby Australia.

Even the tech giant’s own Facebook page was impacted by the ban.

With Zoe Samios and Erin Pearson

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