Q+A tackles Facebook’s Australian news ban as Michelle Rowland questions whether this is ‘the beginning of the end’ for the social media platform

Shadow communications minister Michelle Rowland has told Q+A that Facebook’s decision to ban Australian news may be the the beginning of the end for the social media platform.

Her comments came after Facebook announced the blanket ban on Australian news being shared on its platform on Thursday morning. That ban also affected a number of emergency services and came in response to the federal government’s media bargaining code.

On Thursday night, Ms Rowland joined a host of panellists including Communications Minister Paul Fletcher and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant in attacking Facebook over the move that Ms Inman Grant labelled a “faceplant”.

Ms Rowland pointed out that Facebook was not originally conceived to be a tool for sharing news but, now that 40 per cent of Australians use it to get news, removing it from the platform may be the worst thing Mark Zuckerberg’s company could do.

“Has Facebook made its product completely uncompelling because it is a blanket ban on news,” Ms Rowland said.

“It means no news at all can be shared and so many other sites have been impacted.

Prompted by Q+A host Hamish Macdonald, Ms Rowland said Facebook had “thumbed its nose” at the federal government before saying it was important for Australia to stand its ground against the tech giant.

“The reason why Facebook is able to act in this way it is because it enjoys substantial market power,” she said.

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“And it’s reinforced that. That’s the whole reason why regulation needed to be devised in order to ensure that, that market power was kept in check.”

It was a statement that Mr Fletcher agreed with and said standing up to big tech was important.

“What Facebook has done, we think is the wrong thing to do.

“Some of the consequences for emergency services and health, the Facebook pages of government departments being blocked, 1-800 Respect has been blocked.

“We’re very clear that … we don’t want [Facebook] to be blocking any pages but none of these pages would fall within the definition of the news media code.

“So even on the terms of their objections, it makes no sense.”

Former news director Hal Crawford then defended a suggestion from Macdonald that the Facebook ban was the fault of the federal government for pushing too hard against the tech giant.

“You’ve cut off millions of your citizens to access,” Macdonald said before Mr Crawford defended regulating Facebook.

“Regulation, I think, of Facebook is a great idea,” Mr Crawford responded.

Facebook’s priorities target advertising, not ‘abuse material’

Ms Inman Grant, who spent 22 years working in the tech industry before becoming the nation’s eSafety Commissioner, unloaded on the tech giant for the move they made.

“I think today was a real misfire.

“They let Google take all the body blows and the shrapnel and went with the nuclear option without any warning.

“They deployed language, natural language processing systems that had glitches and then you ended up with this overblocking.

“So it shows how much market power that they have and what steps they’re willing to take.

“This isn’t just about Australia to them. This is about precedent. And the risk that it poses to them on a global scale if other governments follow suit.”

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However, Ms Inman Grant was not done and when challenged about whether Facebook could be trusted with presenting people with balanced news if it returned, she said not.

And she did so by citing a particularly sad experience she had when it came to dealing with Facebook and what she called the “dirty rules” of the game.

“I think one of the reasons that the minister wanted to put somebody in this role who had actually been in technology is that I understand the dirty rules and the playbook,” Ms Inman Grant said.

Asked for an example from Macdonald, she cited efforts to make sure child abuse material was not shared on the platform.

“I’ll give you an example of why I think we need to hold them to account,” she said.

“I had Facebook executives in the office last week and they said, ‘Why do you keep criticising us about moving Messenger to end-to-end encryption?’

“I said, ‘because I’ve been asking you for 18 months one question. What are you going to do to ensure that child sexual abuse material is not traded on that platform?’

“They won’t tell me what they’re going to do to keep children safe.

“I give them suggestions, what about homomorphic encryption tools and behavioural signals.

“They won’t commit to that.

Representatives from Facebook and Google were invited onto the program but declined multiple invitations to appear.

Ministers comment on Higgins rape allegation

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The final issue discussed on the program was the alleged rape of Parliamentary staffer Brittany Higgins at Parliament House, the culture in Canberra and the details surrounding the incident including the alleged response from those in power.

Asked if the culture in Canberra’s corridors of power had to change, Mr Fletcher said those in Canberra needed to “learn” from the incident and the response.

“What happened to Brittany was terrible and it’s very important we learn lessons from that,” Mr Fletcher said.

“I think we absolutely do need to learn from this and do better.

“There are a number of processes that the Prime Minister has announced in response.”

Ms Rowland affirmed a suggestion from Macdonald that the environment in Parliament House is “very blokey” and that change was needed.

“It has changed over the years but not in some areas quickly enough,” Ms Rowland said.

“In terms of, for example, women’s representation, that has improved in some aspects but not in others.

“Labor has made, I can only speak for the Labor Party, we’ve made a very consistent attempt to do that over a couple of decades now in terms of affirmative action policies.

“But we need to look beyond the representation there. We need to look at the advisor level and inclusiveness as a whole.”

Watch the full episode of Q+A on iview.