A new academic briefing suggests Facebook used a deliberate strategy to weaken Australia’s media bargaining code, leveraging its position with a planned blackout of national news sources in February last year.

The report, produced by Reset Australia and the University of Western Australia’s (UWA) tech and policy lab Minderoo, said the tech company undertook ‘covert planning’ ahead of its negotiations with the federal government on how to ‘extort’ concessions in Facebook’s favour.

Some of Facebook’s tactics included forming an ‘ACCC response team’ as far back as August 2020. The group’s single goal of the team, working over seven months, was to counter the impact of the code, and time the shutdown of Facebook pages in a way that gave maximum leverage in the legislative process.

“The ACCC response team had modelled different options for a take down and enacted the most extreme version, with knowledge that its impact would extend beyond news. Emergency, health and government services all suffered,” the briefing read.

“Facebook could have reversed the widespread, damaging blackout but did not. The response team did not follow the company’s usual checks and balances, such as cross checks with sensitive pages and Xcheck list, which typically prevent takedowns from causing adverse effects or ‘over moderating’.”

The revelations came to light in May after employees from the social media giant blew the whistle on actions of senior management at Facebook, who are alleged to have ‘...

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