As the Australian government threatened legislation to make it pay publishers for news content posted on its platform, the company was looking for leverage. It allegedly deployed an algorithm to block the posting of news, but designed it to be broad and sloppy so it would affect more than just publishers. (The Wall Street Journal)

Talking point: According to documents and testimony gathered by authorities in Australia and the U.S., Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg and other executives hailed the effort—which for five days affected Facebook users’ access to information from the country’s government and health services as it launched its COVID-19 vaccination campaign—as a masterstroke. A Facebook spokesperson told the Journal the company intended to exempt government pages from its restrictions, but was unable to due to “a technical error.” Canada has introduced legislation modelled on Australia’s, which would force Big Tech platforms to compensate news publishers for content. A year after Australia passed its law, it still has not applied its most stringent rules to Facebook or its parent company, Meta.