Facebook pages of hospitals, emergency services, charities taken down amid COVID

Meta Platforms, Inc. (FB) has been accused by whistleblowers of deliberately taking down, in February 2021, the Facebook pages of government agencies, hospitals, emergency services, and charities in Australia just as that nation was launching COVID-19 vaccinations. The alleged objective was to block or at least water down pending legislation that would be the first in the world to compel online platforms to pay for content copied from news organizations.1

Facebook has called its action "inadvertent." Meanwhile, whistleblowers have presented U.S. and Australian authorities with documents and testimony indicating that Facebook intentionally took down those pages as a tactic to influence that legislation, despite the obvious dangers to public health and safety.1

• Facebook took down the pages of government agencies, hospitals, emergency services, and charities in February 2021 amid the COVID-19 crisis.
• At the time, Australia's parliament was debating a bill that would force online platforms like Facebook to pay for news content.
• The final bill was amended to Facebook's liking, but similar legislation is pending in Canada and the U.K., while also being suggested in the U.S.
• Facebook calls its action "inadvertent," but internal documents suggest otherwise.

What Facebook Allegedly Did

Facebook claimed that it was only targeting news outlets, but the documents and people familiar with the matter...

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