I wasn't sure whether to go serious with this and post on the Politics board or look at the more light hearted side. I chose the latter due to the Bruce connection.
Short version of the story is the Australian parliament have just voted through legislation dictating that internet search engines and social media companies sharing, or allowing the sharing, of news are to pay compensation to the news / media outlets. (Note, the legislation is not in effect yet). Google initially protested and said it would remove all news content and companies from it's searches in Australia, then blinked and started negotiating with media outlets.
Facebook, on the other hand, overnight on Thursday blocked all news pages and links to those pages. Australians cannot currently access any news media page content on FB, local or international, and anyone overseas cannot access the pages or links to any Aussie news sites.
However, I have no idea what hell kind of algorithm FB ran to do this, because a bunch of completely non news media related pages have been blocked. Most seriously, government sites like the Departments of Health around the country which provide COVID updates and info were blocked, as was the Bureau of Meteorology. Charity pages have been blocked. Those pages have since been restored after reviews by FB to do so were requested.
Less seriously, but equally perplexingly, is the array of other seemingly random pages caught up by this. Including those of some major musical artists.
That's right, Bruce Springsteen's official FB page is currently blocked in Australia. As is that of U2. John Fogarty's page is still accessible, George Thorogood's page is blocked. No rhyme or reason as to why. I can only surmise the word 'news' appears somewhere or there is a link to something on some sites that FB has decided Aussies can't access any more.
There you have it. Banned In The AUS.
For anyone keeping score at home, the required palms have apparently been greased and appropriate backs slapped and the news is back. But, more importantly, so is Bruce.