Facebook are complying with the law, by removing news content so they don’t have to participate in the scheme. But the crazy thing is, if they decided to let a

Facebook are complying with the law, by removing news content so they don’t have to participate in the scheme. But the crazy thing is, if they decided to let any ‘news content’ through - say, block the big Aussie media players but allow overseas news and local independent news from small orgs that aren’t eligible for payments (because it was the big players that lobbied for these laws), then they would still be forced into arbitration and be forced to pay the big orgs, despite not having any of their content on the platform! The law doesn’t actually really distinguish between what is actually “used” or not, or the difference between full article content or just links. If the media companies don’t like any proposed deal, everybody is forced into arbitration and then it’s judged on criteria that specifically exclude factors like the value of the traffic referral from Google or Facebook to the news site.