Meta Deliberately Shut Down Major Facebook Accounts to Strong-Arm Australian Government

Meta Deliberately Shut Down Major Facebook Accounts to Strong-Arm Australian Government
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during a panel talk at the 2020 Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Feb. 15, 2020. Johannes Simon/Getty Images
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Meta’s sweeping news ban across Australia in early 2021, which saw the Facebook pages of non-profits and government entities also shut down, was a deliberate ploy by the tech giant’s top brass to gain leverage during heated negotiations over an impending media payment law.

The U.S.-based Whistleblower Aid revealed on May 5 that it had filed disclosures with the U.S. Department of Justice and Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on behalf of former Facebook employees.