The lifting on the ban came into effect 1am on Friday, allowing 17 million Australian Facebook users to read and share news again after a eight day ban. The company's vice-president Campbell Brown has warned Facebook retained its right to take Australian news content down again in the future. 'This legislation will help level the playing field & see Australian news media businesses paid for generating original content,' he tweeted on Thursday. Pictured: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with wife Priscilla Chan'Obviously that was a major engineering feat for them to wipe the Facebook platform of Australian news media content,' Mr Frydenberg told 2GB on Thursday. Google threatened to pull its search engine from Australian users before backing down and striking multiple deals worth millions of dollars with media companies.

Source: Daily Mail February 25, 2021 19:00 UTC