I’ve seen what a Facebook news ban looks like – more Clive Palmer and Peta Credlin

Australia’s social cohesion is under pressure. If Meta decides to impose a ban on news publishers, it will turn up the dial on polarisation across some of Australia’s most widely used social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and is likely to drive those cracks in our society even deeper.

Last year’s Scanlon-Monash Index of Social Cohesion found that across Australia, levels of cohesion were at their lowest point since the study began 16 years ago. Tensions over immigration, housing stress, cost of living and the Israel-Gaza conflict are already simmering across social media, and spilling out off our screens and into the streets. The recent Voice referendum campaign was profoundly divisive, with people on both sides lamenting the toxicity of the public debate online.

Artwork: Dionne GainCredit: Dionne Gain

As researchers with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a non-profit which studies disinformation, hate and extremism, we have been studying the effects of Meta’s decision to block access to posts from media organisations for Canadian users. What we found has lessons for Australia if a similar ban is imposed here, especially given that Facebook is the main provider of news for Australians on social media.

The key thing to recognise is that what Meta has done in Canada is not a “news ban”. It is not a ban on all content containing news information, it is a ban on media organisations. News information and political content is still readily available across the platform, but instead of coming from professional media, it now comes from a variety of sources with their own agendas. Research suggests that only 29 per cent of Canadian Facebook users reacted to the ban, which began last year, by seeking out other sources, such as going directly to a media organisation’s website.

Under the Canadian ban, when users search for information on news events or political topics, instead of seeing journalism from professional media organisations appear in their Facebook feed, they see posts from politicians, political parties and from lobbyist and interest groups as the top results. These pages often post “news-ish” content, presenting real information but with a spin that favours their own positions. Users also see more posts from groups and pages they are already following, which has the potential to increase the echo chamber effect of social media.

With upcoming state and federal elections in Australia slated for 2025, a similar ban here would incentivise the kind of Facebook campaigning we saw trialled during the Voice referendum by groups such as Advance, who invested heavily in a Facebook strategy, promoting “news-ish” content framed in a highly divisive way, and which we have seen blossoming in Canada since its ban. Canada Proud, a right-wing organisation which posts content similar in style to Advance’s, reports seeing a surge in engagement since the news ban was imposed.

Perversely, one result of the media ban may actually be to boost specific members of the media, like shock jocks and commentators, over their journalist colleagues who are doing straight reporting without building their own public profile. The consequence of this would likely be a more acerbic and polarised public debate.

That’s because while media organisations are banned from Facebook, the pages of “news personalities” are not. In the Australian context, for example, this would mean that while the posts of an organisation such as Sky News wouldn’t be seen by Australians, posts from the pages of hosts such as Peta Credlin could still reach Aussies (providing she wasn’t linking to Sky’s website).

Websites that present as news organisations, but routinely spread misinformation and conspiracy theories appear to be another unintended beneficiary of Meta’s ban. In our analysis we found that 83 per cent of high-quality news sources in Canada were curbed by the media ban, whereas only 33 per cent of low-quality news sources (defined as hyper-partisan sites and sites promoting misinformation and conspiracy theories) faced the same restrictions. The effect of this is to create a vacuum of legitimate journalism and then to allow biased, low-quality sites and disinformation vendors to step in and fill that space.

All of this is bad news for social cohesion and for our democracy. If Meta does ban access to media organisations in Australia, the government should ensure that Meta is at least consistently enforcing its own policies on harmful and misleading content, potentially via the upcoming legislation on mis- and disinformation. They should also consider incorporating requirements for increased transparency and more access to data for independent research to monitor disinformation, hate and polarisation into the Online Safety Act as part of the current review.

Australia should co-ordinate with Canada and other jurisdictions in tackling Meta and other tech giants. We are a small and relatively unimportant market for these enormous companies, which limits our leverage in regulating them as they can afford to simply walk away from Australia altogether. Co-operating with other countries on a united approach significantly raises the stakes, and the costs, if the companies choose not to comply.

The goal might be to eventually wean Australians off using social media as their main, and in some instances only, source of news. But tracking a path towards this includes building digital literacy to help Australians distinguish between high- and low-quality sources of information. It should also include teaching people, especially the next generation, to seek out news from trusted sources rather than passively consuming it via an algorithm on social media platforms.

In the short term, however, we must be aware that standing up to Meta will come at a cost. For the immediate future, no news will not be good news.

Elise Thomas is a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

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