Facebook would still have to pay publishers for news, but under proposed new amendments, a forced arbitration would be a last resort.
Brown said the company would restore news in Australia in coming days.
“After further discussions with the Australian government, we have come to an agreement that will allow us to support the publishers we choose to, including small and local publishers,” Brown said. “Going forward, 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.”
Facebook’s abrupt move to cut off news pages for the country’s 17 million users followed months of negotiations between the Australian government and news industry titan Rupert Murdoch, whose company dominates the newspaper industry there.
The News Media Bargaining Code would have required Facebook, along with other online sites, to pay publishers for their content. Rates were subject to a government…
