Facebook has stopped publishers and people in Australia from reading or sharing news content on the platform. Within an hour of the announcement, The Sydney Morning Herald's stories posted on their Facebook page had been removed. It was reported that Facebook had removed the Australian Bureau of Meteorology page amid floods in Queensland and fires in Western Australia. "Last year Facebook generated approximately 5.1 billion free referrals to Australian publishers worth an estimated AU$407 million," he posted. Less than an hour after the announcement, Facebook had pulled content from Australian media site's Facebook pages.

Source: New Zealand Herald February 17, 2021 19:33 UTC