Standing up to Facebook reflects our spirit for fair play

My company is currently running a Facebook ad campaign. I have asked that it be stopped until Facebook reaches an agreement with the news media it has used to increase its reach and profit.

Our legitimate news media is part of the bedrock of the society we are. It is how we learn of our successes and how we build on them. It is how we learn of our failures and how we can learn about each other and the world. It is too important to be allowed to bleed to death while others take its revenue.

I hope other advertisers will show Facebook that they care. I hope customers and shareholders of companies that still use Facebook will make their opinions known.

David Morrell, South Yarra, Vic

There’s a quick way to fix Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. Make Facebook provide advertisers with a detailed list of all the sites and users where advertisements appear so the advertisers can check what they are paying for.

It could be done under current consumer laws because all publications, radio and TV stations already have to provide an audit circulation of readers, listeners and viewers.

Robert Hunt, Glendalough, WA

I don’t understand the fuss being made about a foreign company that sends its profits overseas providing, or withholding, information about Australian emer­gencies, health, weather etc. Surely this information can be gleaned from ABC local radio and the ABC news website.

Ian Pollock, Maleny, Qld

Good on the government for standing up against a bullying big tech firm and standing up for Australia, the law and the media’s right to copyright payments. The government should stick to its guns. The big tech firms including Facebook are being domineering and authoritarian.

Just refer to how they closed down the US president, informed discussion of COVID and climate change. Their thinking runs along the lines that ideas are absolutely certain after being identified through postmodern deconstruction of language and postmodern activism. Big tech views empirical research that values knowledge production rooted in evidence and reasoned argument as an unfairly privileged cultural construct of white Westerners.

Big tech firms are therefore uncomfortable with the process of searching for the truth, ongoing empirical research and testing of it to find the truth. So they employ fact checkers with less expertise than the experts to label their posts as doubtful.

They create in-house rules that label the sharing of facts and informed debate that creates controversy and unease as unacceptable content and delete it while adding nothing to the search for knowledge.

Andrea Madon, Dickson, ACT

The eyes of the world are on Australia right now. Australia was the first to demand information from China about the initial outbreak of the virus before other countries backed us. This demand for action then led to the current bullying tactics of China with Australia refusing to capitulate.

Australia is the first country to tackle tech giants Google and Facebook. Regardless of Facebook’s retaliation the Australian spirit for fair play will prevail. The world is watching and waiting to see how we deal with these situations. Our courage and determination in these David and Goliath fights could influence leaders across the universe.

Elizabeth Jobson, Tambourine Mountain, Qld

How dreadful to be “unfriended” by the wicked Facebook. In the meantime I’ll dry my tears, subscribe to newspapers and research topics of interest on the net.

Helen Scheller, Benalla, Vic

In the current climate of COVID gloom, the Senate is to be congratulated on its attempt to cheer us up on with its amusing performance of a political satire.

The highlights were: first, Kevin Rudd’s skilful portrayal of delusions of grandeur; second, his very humorous and complex demonstration of a self-refuting contradiction — namely, his own conspiracy theory about the Murdoch press’s purveying of conspiracy theories. Third was the brilliant character-acting ability by Sarah Hanson-Young in her portrayal of an unusually pliable, kindly acolyte in her facilitating Mr Rudd’s hilarious soliloquies.

RF Holt, Cambewarra, NSW