February 21, 2021 • 21 mins
Facebook’s hasty ban on all news content in Australia has already had far reaching consequences. Digital organizer and founder of OrganiseUs, Tabatha Fulker, explains the impact this is already having on digital activists in Australia.
Follow Tabatha on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tabful
Learn more about OrganiseUs: https://www.organiseus.com.au/
Here’s Bridget and Tabatha in Melbourne, Australia for OrganiseUs’ annual intensive for Australian human rights and climate activists: https://www.tangoti.com/bridget-and-tabitha
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to this informed a mini series from There
Are No Girls on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd. This week,
Australian social media users suddenly found themselves banned from sharing
content on Facebook. This was an escalation of Facebook's attempts
to resist the Australian government's push to make big tech
companies pay news publishers when news content shows up in
(00:26):
their search results and their platforms, and according to FT,
it's one of the most far reaching restrictions Facebook has
ever placed on publishers in any part of the world.
This comes as Google struck a separate deal with Rupert
Murdot's News Corps to pay for some of their news content,
resolving their ongoing dispute with the Australian media giant. Last month,
Google threatened to pull out of Australia altogether. Now the
(00:47):
Facebook ban is far reaching. It blocks post from any
Australian publisher from being seen anywhere in the world, and
it blocks all users in Australia from seeing any news content,
even from non Australian publishers. The Washing and Post reports
Facebook used the broadest definition of news content, so it's
not just impacting news publishers, organizations like nonprofits, and activist organizations,
(01:09):
many of whom rely on social media to get their
message and resources out there, were unable to do so
so for services like food banks or domestic violence centers,
some of whom found themselves blocked from posting. Facebook's hasty
move could keep people from getting access to critical resources
during a pandemic. We need to talk about the ways
this move will impact Australians who use the Internet to
do important work. People like digital organizer Tabitha Falker. Tabitha
(01:33):
and I met in the United States when I was
running a boot camp for digital activists. Today she runs
organized US, an organization that trains Australian activists to use
the Internet and social media to make change. I joined
her in Australia to help train digital activists in and
she's been fighting for change since college. When I was
at university, I got involved in grassroots environmental activism, so
(01:56):
I was actually going to get into first and helping
stopping them getting cut down for wood chips, and so
I very much started my kind of career, I guess
as it's become an activism as a university student, just
seeing some injustices in the world and wanting to make
some positive change around them. UM. And that led me
(02:17):
into actually changing my major and becoming a journalist, and
from there, after working on daily newspapers for years, I
really missed the progressive sector, so I took a full
time role at a big national environmental organization where I
was lucky enough to join that just at the time
where digital technologies really started to shape the way that
(02:41):
organizations were talking to their supporters. But through that I
kind of found myself again realizing that there was a
lack of skills and understanding of what digital technologies can do,
and I left that organization to start up Organize US,
which is a digital communication and training agency, so we
work with lots of different nonprofits and grassroots organizers, both
(03:04):
helping them to develop their digital strategy and roll that out,
but also running a really comprehensive training program. And that's
actually where I met you, Bridget, when I was lucky
enough to come across to the US and learn under
some amazing digital organizers UM in how to both use
(03:25):
technology but also how to train other people in using technology. UM.
So that was quite a life changing pivotal moment for me.
From her training work. Tabitha has tapped into a network
of Australian climate and human rights campaigners who all use
social media heavily in their work, and she says the
Facebook band that panicked the real community. So we all
(03:46):
grabbed out our phones and went to log onto our
Facebook pages and suddenly noticed that we couldn't share or
post any news articles. And actually, for a lot of
nonprofit organizations, their Facebook profiles were entirely blank. So the
bandit images gone and all the content was gone from
their fees. Um, and we went, oh God, what's going
(04:08):
on here? And so jumped onto news sites and quickly
realized that Facebook had decided to implement their new sharing
band across the platform for anyone in Australia. So that
basically means that you can't access or share any news
articles of Australian media or international media across their platform
(04:31):
if you're residing in Australia. Um, we knew that this
was a possibility for a little while. So Australia, the
Australian government has been in conversations with Facebook for a
while around this idea that Facebook should be paying news
agencies like Rupert Murdoch to have access to news on
(04:55):
their platform. So there's been a really big tussle going
on politically and Facebook basically A large piece of that
legislation passed our House of Representatives last week and is
likely to pass our upper house, the Senate within a
week's time. So I guess Facebook realized that it needed
(05:15):
to kind of fire rewarding shot about what this new
new media landscape would look like if the Australian government
went ahead with creating this legislation. So how is Facebook
able to do this and what were some of the
impacts that you saw? Well, the problem was is that
there and the problem is is that there's no legal
definition of what news is in Australia. So Facebook has
(05:39):
turned around and said, well, if there isn't a legal
definition of what news is that we can agree on,
we're going to take the broadest term of what news is.
And that is how it's impacted a lot of government
Facebook pages, health based Facebook pages, and nonprofit and community
organizing Facebook pages. They sort of cast the net really
(06:00):
why to show that it's going to be really difficult
to regulate this piece of legislation if it goes through.
And so for us UM it was really difficult because,
first of all, we're in a global pandemic and people
are relying on social media that access health information, and
there were local and community pages that are giving that
(06:20):
information who suddenly found their entire Facebook feed empty of content. UM.
And also a lot of amazing campaigns and organizations that
have invested time, energy and money into developing these Facebook
communities over years and years and years find panicking that
all of that hard work and that community was now gone.
(06:41):
So there was definitely a sense of panic, and we
noticed that my inbox started to explode, my messaging was exploding,
because we worked with so many organizations across their digital
where they were saying, our pages are blame. What's going on?
And so we reached out to Facebook UM and pulled
together a spreadship. Currently in that spreadsheet there's over two
(07:01):
hundred nonprofits and community groups whose pages have been impacted.
So we've put out the call and organizations have been
listing their issues. So basically there's two issues. One is that,
as I've already explained, the pages are entirely blank of
content or a second issue UM and you could fall
into both of these categories or just one of these categories.
(07:22):
The second issue is that organizations found that they could
no longer post web links from their own websites. So
for example, the Australian Council of Trade Unions couldn't post
the link to their Join the Union page. It was
blocked and so Facebook UM. We reached out to Facebook
and they told us that they were taking the broadest
(07:45):
sense of what the news was, but that they did
not expect government political and some non news and UM
non for profit pages to be impacted by yesterday's announcement,
and that the actions that they were taking were focused
on restricting publishers and people in Australia from sharing of
viewing Australian and international news content. The problem was is
(08:07):
that they implemented this incredibly fast based on the government's process,
and it's it's caused chaos. There's been a lot of
issues and a lot of bleachers. So they've are start
in good faith to give them that spreadsheet and that
they are going through and reinstating those pages that are
impacted UM. And of those five hundred pages, I've had
(08:28):
to look this morning and about ten of being reinstated
so far UM and they're moving through and have committed
to be reinstating those pages. I've read reports of food
banks having their Facebook pages be blocked, you know, domestic
violence shelters. We're we're still in a pandemic, and it's
you know, the idea that Facebook would allow for people
(08:50):
who are providing critical services, time sensitive critical services, you know, food,
domestic violence, this stuff can't wait. The fact that they
would block these pages as a as a kind of
bargaining ship, it's really something. It is really something. But
I do I do want to clarify that I don't
(09:10):
think it's as a war between Facebook and the Australian government.
I think this is a war between Facebook and Rupert Murdoch.
And so we have two massive monopolies. We've got the
traditional media monopoly with a figurehead of Rupert Murdoch, and
then we've got this new media landscape and monopoly with
the head of Zuckerberg. And so this is really a
(09:33):
money grabbing exercise. So I think that when you look
at the Media Bargaining Code, which is this piece of
legislation that we're talking about, the code itself is really flawed,
as had a flawed approach from the start um Facebook
blocking access to news for Australians is just one of
the possible outcomes of this proposal. If we're really serious
(09:55):
about looking at media ownership and having a fair democratic
need your landscape, both in the traditional media and the
new media. We need people who are making decisions around this,
that are informed on these technologies, who are understanding that
these are these are also communities. It's not straight broadcast
media in that traditional term, and that fundamentally Facebook doesn't
(10:19):
have to be putting up news media because they're privately
owned company, so they have done that in the past.
So I think that there are some big, broad philosophical
conversations that we need to be having around the future
of media, both in the traditional sense and the new
media sense. This dispute between Facebook and Rupert Madak has
created big problems for digital organizers like Tabitha, But as
(10:40):
a campaigner and a former journalist, someone whose work involves
persuasion and sending an effective method, she kind of understands
it as a tactic. Rupert Myrtop has a direct line
of communication with Australia's Prime Minister. So I think that
as much as I entirely disagree with Facebook's approach of King,
so many pages and so many incredibly vital pages. I do.
(11:03):
I do understand the approach and the we're campaigners, and
so if I was going to run a campaign on
this front, you would be thinking about there's a threat
of legislation being implemented in five days time. We need
to show what the impact of this could look like.
And Australia is being used as that case study and
that scapegoat in that. So Facebook really needs to reinstate
(11:27):
these pages. If they're going to keep UM that community
spirit alive on its platforms, it needs to understand and
apologize for this with its community. But I also a
part of me is as a as a reform journalist,
as I like to call it. I understand the war
the why they've taken this approach. UM news media in
(11:47):
Australia accounts for about four percent of the content that's
across Facebook, and I think that there are some incredibly
clever campaigners and organizers who have already noticed that. Over
the last twelve months face this book has kind of
been moving in this direction. If you post you news
link on your your page, your engagement is really low.
But if you are repurposing that news and repurposing that
(12:09):
content through the voice of your supporters and the voice
of your community, then your engagement spikes. So as digital
organizers and content creators, we need to be thinking about
how we are telling our own stories in our own way, um,
and really focusing in on that engagement. Having said that,
then that also does bring real concerns around misinformation being
(12:30):
portrayed across these platforms when we can't have really solid, factorious,
factor checked independent reportage on these platforms as well. That's
such a great point, and I know that as a
digital organizer and your network of digital organizers, you know,
y'all are some of the most innovative folks out there.
Have folks already sort of talking about, you know, creative
(12:51):
ways around it, like how you're going to sort of
innovate so that you can still get your message out
there even with Facebook doing these kinds of things. Definitely,
So we you facilitated a snap webinar yesterday afternoon UM
with most of the progressive organizers across Australia, so everyone,
hundreds of people jumped onto a webinar and we started
to have that exact conversation. First of all, we just
(13:12):
wanted to let everyone know that we've been having these
conversations and that Facebook is promising to reinstate these pages,
but then we stepped into the space to have those conversations.
So UM, basically it's like how to tell the news
without having to actually link across your news and there
are some really interesting, fun and creative ways of doing that. UM,
(13:34):
And we've started having that shared conversation and and up
skilling everybody to be thinking about what does this look like.
Everyone's really happy to move away from the Rupert Murdoch press. Um.
The part of this that is really strung is going
to continue to struggle is like independent media, um, satire,
political commentary, because they are all currently falling under that
(13:55):
definition of news and losing their ability to post their content.
So I mean, there's a really good opportunity for cartoonists,
for graphic designers, for video creators to think about new
ways and sharing news and getting that information across bloody hell.
Hopefully Facebook does reverse its decision and we can start
(14:19):
to share news links again, because ideally this isn't the
way we want to continue going forward. What do you
think about the idea that Facebook, just one company, has
the this kind of power to really shape the entire
media landscape of Australia, Like, what do you think of
one company having that power to have that kind of impact.
(14:40):
I think it's a it's a flawed approach, but and sadly,
we've been living in a monopoly media landscape for a
really long time. UM, So I don't agree that Facebook
should be able to hold that kind of power, and
I also don't agree that large organizations like news Corp
could be holding that amount of power. UM decision was
(15:00):
made federal again, government decision was made a few years
ago which enabled Rupert Murdoch to buy up most of
the regional newspapers across Australia, and in the last twelve
months they've closed a hundred and twelve local newspapers just
close to them and moved them into a digital landscape.
(15:21):
So if if the news agencies and news um monopolies
are really serious about driving revenue, they should be continuing
these publications and allowing local ad spends to feel their
business models. So I disagree that Facebook should be funding
Rupert Murdock's business model, but I also disagree that Facebook
(15:42):
should be a labled to basically run tax free in
so many countries across the world as well, So if
we need to be looking at the way big TEP
is regulated um at that federal level. But I don't
think that it should just be an argument between traditional
media and new media and allowed to create the dis course. Definitely,
(16:02):
I completely agree, and I think that something that you
really point out that I think is essential is that
you know, in this in these two factions of media warring,
it's independent journalism, it's local journalism. It's it's people making
content that are already marginalized or having a hard time
getting that platform, who I feel can really be in
(16:22):
the cross hairs. And it's important to lift up the
folks who are you know, doing that work, whether it's
you know, local journalists or you know satire or folks
who may not have this big platform. And I worry
that it's those already marginalized creators and you know, UH
jur and media makers who are going to be most
(16:43):
hurt by these kinds of decisions. Absolutely, it would be
a great outcome of this battle if UH independent media,
satires um political commentators who are able to get a
seat at the table and developer categorization of what news
(17:03):
is and allow these small UM thought provoking think tanks
to still be able to build up their audiences across
these platforms and hold those communities. Imagine if we were
able to kind of dulve the noise of the right
wing or the group of myrtal owned media across these
(17:24):
platforms and enabled these smaller ones to have a bigger
voice and take up more space on that that would
be a fantastic outcome of this process. That's exactly what
I want to see globally, you know, more people being
included in the conversation and having a seat at the
table and a real voice and not just big right
wing noise machines being able to drown everyone else out.
So what's next, you know, what's the path forward? We
(17:46):
get creative, We come together as a community, We hold
Facebook accountable and make Facebook recognize that it has been Like,
the nonprofit sector is huge, and they've invested money, resources,
energy and time into building these communities and they need
(18:06):
to reinstate these pages immediately UM and ensure that they
are continue to be thriving communities UM, particularly around these
issues that everyone's advocating for. But then I think this
is a great opportunity as organizers to become together and
be super creative thinking about how we are telling our
(18:27):
own stories, relying less on traditional media, coming up with
creative ways of amplifying diverse voices, diverse ways of developing content,
and ensuring that we also are stepping out into a
whole bunch of different platforms that are allowing our stories
(18:48):
to be told and and not holding us accountable based
on these decisions in this legislation. Is there anybody or
any organization out there who you think is really doing
cutting edge creative work around getting their story out there? Um.
Funnily enough, I've fallen in love with a couple of
different news um sources on Instagram who were just simply
(19:11):
using the slide technique to tell news media stories really quickly,
so in sound bites. UM. I think that that's fantastic.
There's a woman, Jess Harwood, who has just been thriving
over the past twelve months. She's a cartoonist and she
is supporting the work of so many different organizations with
really creative storytelling UM and getting her work kind of
(19:35):
broadcast on the BBC for example. UM. I think that
there are some incredible video producers and there's an organization
in Australia that is really kind of twelve months ago
decided that it wanted to sort of step away, as
I was mentioning, from regular news media, and that's get up.
And they have just seen incredible engagement when they are
(19:56):
putting news stories through the voices and through the faces
of their community, of their membership based community. UM. People
are wanting to follow these pages because they're interested in
storytelling from that page's perspective, and I think we need
to remember that. But we are our own best storytellers.
(20:17):
I love that. How about that? Where can folks keep
up with all the amazing work that you're doing so
they can follow us at organize us dot com that
a you um jump on there. We've got a newsletter
that we're emailing out to people. We have some incredible
Facebook pages and groups that are still currently operating, and
(20:40):
we are running a whole comprehensive training program that is
going to be really leaning into this issue and really
encouraging organizers to be thinking about how they're creating engaging
content content across multiple channels in really fun and engaging
ways so that we're not caught up in this tussle
between traditional media and new check but when being able
(21:01):
to tell our our own stories, our own wife. If
you enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing.
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say Hi. We'd love to hear from
you at Hello at tango dot com. Dis Informed brought
(21:24):
to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet.
It's a production of I Heart Radio and Unbust Creative
Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tory Harrison is our
supervising producer, and engineer. Michael Lamtto is our contributing producer.
I'm your host Bridget Todd. For more great podcast check
out the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
You're listening to this informed a mini series from There
Are No Girls on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd. This week,
Australian social media users suddenly found themselves banned from sharing
content on Facebook. This was an escalation of Facebook's attempts
to resist the Australian government's push to make big tech
companies pay news publishers when news content shows up in
(00:26):
their search results and their platforms, and according to FT,
it's one of the most far reaching restrictions Facebook has
ever placed on publishers in any part of the world.
This comes as Google struck a separate deal with Rupert
Murdot's News Corps to pay for some of their news content,
resolving their ongoing dispute with the Australian media giant. Last month,
Google threatened to pull out of Australia altogether. Now the
(00:47):
Facebook ban is far reaching. It blocks post from any
Australian publisher from being seen anywhere in the world, and
it blocks all users in Australia from seeing any news content,
even from non Australian publishers. The Washing and Post reports
Facebook used the broadest definition of news content, so it's
not just impacting news publishers, organizations like nonprofits, and activist organizations,
(01:09):
many of whom rely on social media to get their
message and resources out there, were unable to do so
so for services like food banks or domestic violence centers,
some of whom found themselves blocked from posting. Facebook's hasty
move could keep people from getting access to critical resources
during a pandemic. We need to talk about the ways
this move will impact Australians who use the Internet to
do important work. People like digital organizer Tabitha Falker. Tabitha
(01:33):
and I met in the United States when I was
running a boot camp for digital activists. Today she runs
organized US, an organization that trains Australian activists to use
the Internet and social media to make change. I joined
her in Australia to help train digital activists in and
she's been fighting for change since college. When I was
at university, I got involved in grassroots environmental activism, so
(01:56):
I was actually going to get into first and helping
stopping them getting cut down for wood chips, and so
I very much started my kind of career, I guess
as it's become an activism as a university student, just
seeing some injustices in the world and wanting to make
some positive change around them. UM. And that led me
(02:17):
into actually changing my major and becoming a journalist, and
from there, after working on daily newspapers for years, I
really missed the progressive sector, so I took a full
time role at a big national environmental organization where I
was lucky enough to join that just at the time
where digital technologies really started to shape the way that
(02:41):
organizations were talking to their supporters. But through that I
kind of found myself again realizing that there was a
lack of skills and understanding of what digital technologies can do,
and I left that organization to start up Organize US,
which is a digital communication and training agency, so we
work with lots of different nonprofits and grassroots organizers, both
(03:04):
helping them to develop their digital strategy and roll that out,
but also running a really comprehensive training program. And that's
actually where I met you, Bridget, when I was lucky
enough to come across to the US and learn under
some amazing digital organizers UM in how to both use
(03:25):
technology but also how to train other people in using technology. UM.
So that was quite a life changing pivotal moment for me.
From her training work. Tabitha has tapped into a network
of Australian climate and human rights campaigners who all use
social media heavily in their work, and she says the
Facebook band that panicked the real community. So we all
(03:46):
grabbed out our phones and went to log onto our
Facebook pages and suddenly noticed that we couldn't share or
post any news articles. And actually, for a lot of
nonprofit organizations, their Facebook profiles were entirely blank. So the
bandit images gone and all the content was gone from
their fees. Um, and we went, oh God, what's going
(04:08):
on here? And so jumped onto news sites and quickly
realized that Facebook had decided to implement their new sharing
band across the platform for anyone in Australia. So that
basically means that you can't access or share any news
articles of Australian media or international media across their platform
(04:31):
if you're residing in Australia. Um, we knew that this
was a possibility for a little while. So Australia, the
Australian government has been in conversations with Facebook for a
while around this idea that Facebook should be paying news
agencies like Rupert Murdoch to have access to news on
(04:55):
their platform. So there's been a really big tussle going
on politically and Facebook basically A large piece of that
legislation passed our House of Representatives last week and is
likely to pass our upper house, the Senate within a
week's time. So I guess Facebook realized that it needed
(05:15):
to kind of fire rewarding shot about what this new
new media landscape would look like if the Australian government
went ahead with creating this legislation. So how is Facebook
able to do this and what were some of the
impacts that you saw? Well, the problem was is that
there and the problem is is that there's no legal
definition of what news is in Australia. So Facebook has
(05:39):
turned around and said, well, if there isn't a legal
definition of what news is that we can agree on,
we're going to take the broadest term of what news is.
And that is how it's impacted a lot of government
Facebook pages, health based Facebook pages, and nonprofit and community
organizing Facebook pages. They sort of cast the net really
(06:00):
why to show that it's going to be really difficult
to regulate this piece of legislation if it goes through.
And so for us UM it was really difficult because,
first of all, we're in a global pandemic and people
are relying on social media that access health information, and
there were local and community pages that are giving that
(06:20):
information who suddenly found their entire Facebook feed empty of content. UM.
And also a lot of amazing campaigns and organizations that
have invested time, energy and money into developing these Facebook
communities over years and years and years find panicking that
all of that hard work and that community was now gone.
(06:41):
So there was definitely a sense of panic, and we
noticed that my inbox started to explode, my messaging was exploding,
because we worked with so many organizations across their digital
where they were saying, our pages are blame. What's going on?
And so we reached out to Facebook UM and pulled
together a spreadship. Currently in that spreadsheet there's over two
(07:01):
hundred nonprofits and community groups whose pages have been impacted.
So we've put out the call and organizations have been
listing their issues. So basically there's two issues. One is that,
as I've already explained, the pages are entirely blank of
content or a second issue UM and you could fall
into both of these categories or just one of these categories.
(07:22):
The second issue is that organizations found that they could
no longer post web links from their own websites. So
for example, the Australian Council of Trade Unions couldn't post
the link to their Join the Union page. It was
blocked and so Facebook UM. We reached out to Facebook
and they told us that they were taking the broadest
(07:45):
sense of what the news was, but that they did
not expect government political and some non news and UM
non for profit pages to be impacted by yesterday's announcement,
and that the actions that they were taking were focused
on restricting publishers and people in Australia from sharing of
viewing Australian and international news content. The problem was is
(08:07):
that they implemented this incredibly fast based on the government's process,
and it's it's caused chaos. There's been a lot of
issues and a lot of bleachers. So they've are start
in good faith to give them that spreadsheet and that
they are going through and reinstating those pages that are
impacted UM. And of those five hundred pages, I've had
(08:28):
to look this morning and about ten of being reinstated
so far UM and they're moving through and have committed
to be reinstating those pages. I've read reports of food
banks having their Facebook pages be blocked, you know, domestic
violence shelters. We're we're still in a pandemic, and it's
you know, the idea that Facebook would allow for people
(08:50):
who are providing critical services, time sensitive critical services, you know, food,
domestic violence, this stuff can't wait. The fact that they
would block these pages as a as a kind of
bargaining ship, it's really something. It is really something. But
I do I do want to clarify that I don't
(09:10):
think it's as a war between Facebook and the Australian government.
I think this is a war between Facebook and Rupert Murdoch.
And so we have two massive monopolies. We've got the
traditional media monopoly with a figurehead of Rupert Murdoch, and
then we've got this new media landscape and monopoly with
the head of Zuckerberg. And so this is really a
(09:33):
money grabbing exercise. So I think that when you look
at the Media Bargaining Code, which is this piece of
legislation that we're talking about, the code itself is really flawed,
as had a flawed approach from the start um Facebook
blocking access to news for Australians is just one of
the possible outcomes of this proposal. If we're really serious
(09:55):
about looking at media ownership and having a fair democratic
need your landscape, both in the traditional media and the
new media. We need people who are making decisions around this,
that are informed on these technologies, who are understanding that
these are these are also communities. It's not straight broadcast
media in that traditional term, and that fundamentally Facebook doesn't
(10:19):
have to be putting up news media because they're privately
owned company, so they have done that in the past.
So I think that there are some big, broad philosophical
conversations that we need to be having around the future
of media, both in the traditional sense and the new
media sense. This dispute between Facebook and Rupert Madak has
created big problems for digital organizers like Tabitha, But as
(10:40):
a campaigner and a former journalist, someone whose work involves
persuasion and sending an effective method, she kind of understands
it as a tactic. Rupert Myrtop has a direct line
of communication with Australia's Prime Minister. So I think that
as much as I entirely disagree with Facebook's approach of King,
so many pages and so many incredibly vital pages. I do.
(11:03):
I do understand the approach and the we're campaigners, and
so if I was going to run a campaign on
this front, you would be thinking about there's a threat
of legislation being implemented in five days time. We need
to show what the impact of this could look like.
And Australia is being used as that case study and
that scapegoat in that. So Facebook really needs to reinstate
(11:27):
these pages. If they're going to keep UM that community
spirit alive on its platforms, it needs to understand and
apologize for this with its community. But I also a
part of me is as a as a reform journalist,
as I like to call it. I understand the war
the why they've taken this approach. UM news media in
(11:47):
Australia accounts for about four percent of the content that's
across Facebook, and I think that there are some incredibly
clever campaigners and organizers who have already noticed that. Over
the last twelve months face this book has kind of
been moving in this direction. If you post you news
link on your your page, your engagement is really low.
But if you are repurposing that news and repurposing that
(12:09):
content through the voice of your supporters and the voice
of your community, then your engagement spikes. So as digital
organizers and content creators, we need to be thinking about
how we are telling our own stories in our own way, um,
and really focusing in on that engagement. Having said that,
then that also does bring real concerns around misinformation being
(12:30):
portrayed across these platforms when we can't have really solid, factorious,
factor checked independent reportage on these platforms as well. That's
such a great point, and I know that as a
digital organizer and your network of digital organizers, you know,
y'all are some of the most innovative folks out there.
Have folks already sort of talking about, you know, creative
(12:51):
ways around it, like how you're going to sort of
innovate so that you can still get your message out
there even with Facebook doing these kinds of things. Definitely,
So we you facilitated a snap webinar yesterday afternoon UM
with most of the progressive organizers across Australia, so everyone,
hundreds of people jumped onto a webinar and we started
to have that exact conversation. First of all, we just
(13:12):
wanted to let everyone know that we've been having these
conversations and that Facebook is promising to reinstate these pages,
but then we stepped into the space to have those conversations.
So UM, basically it's like how to tell the news
without having to actually link across your news and there
are some really interesting, fun and creative ways of doing that. UM,
(13:34):
And we've started having that shared conversation and and up
skilling everybody to be thinking about what does this look like.
Everyone's really happy to move away from the Rupert Murdoch press. Um.
The part of this that is really strung is going
to continue to struggle is like independent media, um, satire,
political commentary, because they are all currently falling under that
(13:55):
definition of news and losing their ability to post their content.
So I mean, there's a really good opportunity for cartoonists,
for graphic designers, for video creators to think about new
ways and sharing news and getting that information across bloody hell.
Hopefully Facebook does reverse its decision and we can start
(14:19):
to share news links again, because ideally this isn't the
way we want to continue going forward. What do you
think about the idea that Facebook, just one company, has
the this kind of power to really shape the entire
media landscape of Australia, Like, what do you think of
one company having that power to have that kind of impact.
(14:40):
I think it's a it's a flawed approach, but and sadly,
we've been living in a monopoly media landscape for a
really long time. UM, So I don't agree that Facebook
should be able to hold that kind of power, and
I also don't agree that large organizations like news Corp
could be holding that amount of power. UM decision was
(15:00):
made federal again, government decision was made a few years
ago which enabled Rupert Murdoch to buy up most of
the regional newspapers across Australia, and in the last twelve
months they've closed a hundred and twelve local newspapers just
close to them and moved them into a digital landscape.
(15:21):
So if if the news agencies and news um monopolies
are really serious about driving revenue, they should be continuing
these publications and allowing local ad spends to feel their
business models. So I disagree that Facebook should be funding
Rupert Murdock's business model, but I also disagree that Facebook
(15:42):
should be a labled to basically run tax free in
so many countries across the world as well, So if
we need to be looking at the way big TEP
is regulated um at that federal level. But I don't
think that it should just be an argument between traditional
media and new media and allowed to create the dis course. Definitely,
(16:02):
I completely agree, and I think that something that you
really point out that I think is essential is that
you know, in this in these two factions of media warring,
it's independent journalism, it's local journalism. It's it's people making
content that are already marginalized or having a hard time
getting that platform, who I feel can really be in
(16:22):
the cross hairs. And it's important to lift up the
folks who are you know, doing that work, whether it's
you know, local journalists or you know satire or folks
who may not have this big platform. And I worry
that it's those already marginalized creators and you know, UH
jur and media makers who are going to be most
(16:43):
hurt by these kinds of decisions. Absolutely, it would be
a great outcome of this battle if UH independent media,
satires um political commentators who are able to get a
seat at the table and developer categorization of what news
(17:03):
is and allow these small UM thought provoking think tanks
to still be able to build up their audiences across
these platforms and hold those communities. Imagine if we were
able to kind of dulve the noise of the right
wing or the group of myrtal owned media across these
(17:24):
platforms and enabled these smaller ones to have a bigger
voice and take up more space on that that would
be a fantastic outcome of this process. That's exactly what
I want to see globally, you know, more people being
included in the conversation and having a seat at the
table and a real voice and not just big right
wing noise machines being able to drown everyone else out.
So what's next, you know, what's the path forward? We
(17:46):
get creative, We come together as a community, We hold
Facebook accountable and make Facebook recognize that it has been Like,
the nonprofit sector is huge, and they've invested money, resources,
energy and time into building these communities and they need
(18:06):
to reinstate these pages immediately UM and ensure that they
are continue to be thriving communities UM, particularly around these
issues that everyone's advocating for. But then I think this
is a great opportunity as organizers to become together and
be super creative thinking about how we are telling our
(18:27):
own stories, relying less on traditional media, coming up with
creative ways of amplifying diverse voices, diverse ways of developing content,
and ensuring that we also are stepping out into a
whole bunch of different platforms that are allowing our stories
(18:48):
to be told and and not holding us accountable based
on these decisions in this legislation. Is there anybody or
any organization out there who you think is really doing
cutting edge creative work around getting their story out there? Um.
Funnily enough, I've fallen in love with a couple of
different news um sources on Instagram who were just simply
(19:11):
using the slide technique to tell news media stories really quickly,
so in sound bites. UM. I think that that's fantastic.
There's a woman, Jess Harwood, who has just been thriving
over the past twelve months. She's a cartoonist and she
is supporting the work of so many different organizations with
really creative storytelling UM and getting her work kind of
(19:35):
broadcast on the BBC for example. UM. I think that
there are some incredible video producers and there's an organization
in Australia that is really kind of twelve months ago
decided that it wanted to sort of step away, as
I was mentioning, from regular news media, and that's get up.
And they have just seen incredible engagement when they are
(19:56):
putting news stories through the voices and through the faces
of their community, of their membership based community. UM. People
are wanting to follow these pages because they're interested in
storytelling from that page's perspective, and I think we need
to remember that. But we are our own best storytellers.
(20:17):
I love that. How about that? Where can folks keep
up with all the amazing work that you're doing so
they can follow us at organize us dot com that
a you um jump on there. We've got a newsletter
that we're emailing out to people. We have some incredible
Facebook pages and groups that are still currently operating, and
(20:40):
we are running a whole comprehensive training program that is
going to be really leaning into this issue and really
encouraging organizers to be thinking about how they're creating engaging
content content across multiple channels in really fun and engaging
ways so that we're not caught up in this tussle
between traditional media and new check but when being able
(21:01):
to tell our our own stories, our own wife. If
you enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing.
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say Hi. We'd love to hear from
you at Hello at tango dot com. Dis Informed brought
(21:24):
to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet.
It's a production of I Heart Radio and Unbust Creative
Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tory Harrison is our
supervising producer, and engineer. Michael Lamtto is our contributing producer.
I'm your host Bridget Todd. For more great podcast check
out the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
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