Bushfire and flood affected residents fearful of another Facebook news ban

In 2021, the tech giant shut off news from Facebook for a week. Now residents battered in recent years by fire and flood fear what would happen in another crisis.

Siobhan Mahoney at home with dog Murphy in St Albans, northwest of Sydney. Picture: Noah Yim

Residents in areas ravaged by bushfires and floods in the last few years say another Facebook news ban – like the one three years ago when Facebook banned official pages of news outlets as well as government and emergency service agencies – could be devastating in another natural disaster.

Following Meta’s announcement it would no longer pay news publishers under the news media bargaining code, the prospect of another news blackout on the world’s most popular social media platform looms over Australia.

In February 2021, as the bill was making its way through parliament, the tech giant overnight banned Facebook pages of media outlets and stopped users from posting news links. Some authorities and emergency services were also caught in the wash-up, like NSW Fire and Rescue and the Bureau of Meteorology.

The threat is more poignant in a town like St Albans, two hours north of Sydney.

St Albans was hard hit by the Black Summer bushfires – specifically, the Gospers Mountain Fire, the biggest forest fire Australia has seen on record. Since then, it’s been flooded numerous times during the La Nina years.

“We don’t have any mobile coverage up here, so people use their home internet services,” said Siobhan Mahoney, a resident of two decades.

“We have a community Facebook page, which obviously people use to alert the community – which quite often comes from services like the Bureau of Meteorology.”

Cars have to be ferried across the Hawkesbury River to get to St Albans from Sydney. Therefore, during natural disasters, the town is even more isolated, Ms Mahoney explained.

“As soon as the floods happen, they take the ferries off.”

She recalled one time she was stuck at home for weeks because the floodwater rose to the bottom of her driveway and the SES delivered her dog’s heart medicine by boat.

Ms Mahoney said that, while many people got their information during natural disasters directly from the apps or websites of emergency services, a Facebook news ban that took out those agencies on the platform would add unnecessary “friction” to the system, especially if locals couldn’t share links from those authorities to local groups to keep each other informed.

“I dread to think what sort of non-factual information might be spread via Facebook if people weren’t able to actually see the facts for themselves,” she said.

Hawkesbury City Council Deputy Mayor Barry Calvert, who served as mayor during the Black Summer fires, said being unable to access critical emergency services could delay responses by “valuable hours or minutes”.

“A lot of people do only go through Facebook,” he said.

“Maybe if we’re all re-educated to go straight to the official apps, but that’s a pretty big ask of people, I think.

“You can’t always teach an old dog new tricks.”

Matt Vella, a farmer in Camden, on the southwest fringe of Sydney, said a Facebook news ban would “without a doubt” hurt him and his business were another flood to come.

As a farmer, he said he gets his weather information from a range of services, but it was ­important during a crisis that he could get alerts as they happened from as many sources as possible.

“At the end of the day, if I’m not checking my phone, my wife, cousin, partner, friend, acquaintance might be on Facebook and see an alert go out – you know, that somebody shares from a page or a community group,” he said.

“The more touch points we have to get more information during a crisis, the better.”

Camden saw repeat flooding in the last few years.

A Meta spokesperson, contacted for comment, said there was currently “no change to publishers’ ability to use Facebook and they can continue to benefit from our free tools and products which they can voluntarily use should they want to”.

“There is also no change to our Safety Check product and other features that people can use in a time of crisis.”