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The announcement caps months of bitter dispute between the American tech firm and Canberra, which had been working on legislation that would force tech platforms to pay publishers for news content.
On Tuesday, the Australian government said it would amend the code to include a provision that “must take into account whether a digital platform has made a significant contribution to the sustainability of the Australian news industry through reaching commercial agreements with news media businesses.”
Arbitration, meanwhile, will now only be used as a “last resort” following a period of “good faith” mediation.
“The government has clarified we will retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook so that we won’t automatically be subject to a forced negotiation,” Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president for global news partnerships, said in a statement.
She said the agreement “will allow us to support the publishers we choose to, including small and local publishers,” adding that the company was “restoring news on Facebook in Australia in the coming days.”
Facebook’s decision to restore news came as the Australian Senate discussed the latest iteration of the media law.
“It’s always been our intention to support journalism in Australia and around the world, and we’ll continue to invest in news globally, and resist efforts by media conglomerates to advance regulatory frameworks that do not take account of the true value exchange between publishers and platforms like Facebook,” Brown said.
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