Day: February 18, 2021

NASA’s Perseverance probe landed safely and on time on Mars, at 3:55 p.m. EST, Thursday, marking another success for the U.S. space agency.The nuclear-powered probe made its way through a harrowing landing process, deemed by some engineers as “seven minutes of terror” because it involves parachutes, powered descent and a “sky crane” that gently lowers Perseverance onto a challenging, rocky area of Martian surface. After a confirmed safe landing, members of the probe’s Mission Control erupted in applause and cheers. NASA has now successfully landed nine of 10 probes sent to the Red Planet. Minutes after touching down, Perseverance beamed back a black-and-white image from the surface as more applause broke out at Mission Control.Safe on Mars. https://t.co/heoYjkwfty— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 18, 2021The probe is equipped with a microphone, which should have recorded its descent. Perseverance, and its helicopter-like companion drone, Ingenuity, began the 300-million mile journey in July. Ingenuity will test if powered flight can be done in Mars’ thin atmosphere. The six-wheeled Perseverance, which looks like the other four rover probes that have landed on Mars, set down in Jezero Crater, which is believed to be an ancient lakebed and a potential source for remnants of ancient life.  Determining if Mars once hosted life is the primary goal of the probe’s two-year mission. During its search, the probe will take samples from the Red Planet’s surface and store them in its 43 sample tubes. NASA plans to send another mission to Mars to retrieve the tubes sometime in the early 2030s. Before collecting samples, NASA will spend the next weeks making sure Perseverance’s systems are all working. You can follow Perseverance’s progress on its Twitter account. 
  
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NASA and the United States have successfully landed the Perseverance on Mars after the rover left the company of spacecrafts from the UAE and China in orbit. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, challenges for the rover – and potentially a treasure trove of discoveries  – await.Produced by:  Arash Arabasadi 
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An international backlash was growing Thursday to Facebook blocking users of its platform in Australia from viewing or sharing links to domestic and international news stories, with the social media giant accused of behaving like a “bully.”
Facebook’s move to block the content ahead of Australian lawmakers approving a new measure forcing the company to pay media organizations is prompting widespread condemnation from politicians in Europe and North America.
They say the social media giant is being disrespectful of democracy and shamelessly exploiting its monopolistic commercial power.Campbell Brown, head of Facebook’s news partnerships team, introduces Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Paley Center, Oct. 25, 2019 in New York.”What the proposed law introduced in Australia fails to recognize is the fundamental nature of the relationship between our platform and publishers,” Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships, wrote in a post Wednesday. “I hope in the future, we can include news for people in Australia once again.”
Rights groups also joined in with scathing criticism. Amnesty International said it was “extremely concerning that a private company is willing to control access to information that people rely on.”
It added, “Facebook’s willingness to block credible news sources also stands in sharp distinction to the company’s poor track record in addressing the spread of hateful content and disinformation on the platform.”The ABC News Facebook page is seen on a screen in Canberra, Australia, Feb. 18, 2021.Access cut
Facebook’s action means that users located outside Australia are unable to access via the platform news produced by Australian broadcasters and newspapers, and people inside Australia cannot access any news content via Facebook at all.
Facebook’s move is not deterring the Australian Parliament from approving the new law — the world’s first to require social media companies to pay media outlets for using their content.FILE – Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is pictured in Tokyo, Nov. 17, 2020.The law will likely come into force next week. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Facebook had “unfriended Australia.” He described the company as arrogant and bullying and warned that Facebook was stoking international fears about oversized technology companies.
Under Australia’s new media code, social media companies will be required to reach a payment deal for news content linked or shared on their platforms. If an agreement proves elusive, an independent arbitrator can set pricing.
Facebook’s block took effect overnight Wednesday, with the digital giant preventing the sharing of news, including content from the country’s public broadcasters, as well as government pages featuring weather and emergency service warnings. Sharing or linking to community, women’s health and domestic violence pages also disappeared.
Elaine Pearson, Australia director at Human Rights Watch, said it was a “dangerous turn of events. Cutting off access to vital information to an entire country in the dead of the night is unconscionable.”
“We will not be intimidated by this act of bullying by Big Tech,” Morrison said in a statement.
He added, “These actions will only confirm the concerns that an increasing number of countries are expressing about the behavior of Big Tech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them. They may be changing the world, but that doesn’t mean they should run it.”
Morrison’s remarks were echoed elsewhere.
In Britain, Facebook’s action was described by Conservative lawmaker Julian Knight, chairman of a parliamentary culture and media committee, as “one of the most idiotic but also deeply disturbing corporate moves of our lifetimes.
“Australia’s democratically elected government is democratically elected. And they have the right to make laws and legislation. And it’s really disrespecting democracy to act in this fashion,” he told British broadcaster Sky News.
In 2019, a British government review found that Facebook and Google had a damaging impact on Britain’s news media because they attracted the lion’s share of online advertising revenue, starving private sector broadcasters and newspapers of income. Researchers found that 61% of British media advertising goes to either Facebook or Google.
Google threatened to take similar action, but last week it began signing preemptive payment deals. Google also has been striking voluntary deals in Britain and some European countries.
Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s competition commissioner, said Facebook and Google, owner of the world’s most used search engine, act like “a de facto duopoly.”
In a post, Facebook told Australia’s 18 million users that it had acted reluctantly and argued the new law misunderstood the relationship between Facebook and publishers who use it to share news content.Facebook advocates
But Facebook also has defenders in the tech industry.
Mike Masnick, founder of the California-based blog Techdirt.com, said users are not being blocked from accessing news. “Contrary to the idea that this is an ‘attack’ on journalism or news in Australia, it’s not. The news still exists in Australia. News companies still have websites. People can still visit those websites,” he said in a blog post.
Australia’s move to tax links is alarming, Masnick adds. “This is fundamentally against the principles of an open internet. The government saying that you can’t link to a news site unless you pay a tax should be seen as inherently problematic for a long list of reasons. At a most basic level, it’s demanding payment for traffic.”
On Thursday, the tech giant started to allow access via its platform from public health websites.
Facebook’s move to block media content in Australia was lambasted by Britain’s News Media Association. Henry Faure Walker, chairman of the group, said the action showed why countries need to coordinate robust regulation. He said the action was “a classic example” of a monopoly power “trying to protect its dominant position with scant regard for the citizens and customers it supposedly serves.”
Facebook’s British critics also highlighted emerging news that the tech giant has accepted funding from China’s state-controlled media organizations, including the China Daily newspaper and China Global Television Network (CGTN), to promote Chinese government denials that Beijing has been targeting ethnic Uighur Muslims and other minorities in the northwest region of Xinjiang in what the U.S. government has labeled a “genocide.”
An investigation this week by Britain’s trade journal the Press Gazette unearthed details of payments being made by Chinese state-controlled media to Facebook to advertise and promote the stories dismissing international concerns over the plight of the Uighurs as Western “disinformation.” 
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For two decades, global news outlets have complained internet companies are getting rich at their expense, selling advertising linked to their reports without sharing revenue.
Now, Australia is joining France and other governments in pushing Google, Facebook and other internet giants to pay. That might channel more money to a news industry that is cutting coverage as revenue shrinks. But it also sets up a clash with some of the tech industry’s biggest names.
Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., has announced agreements to pay publishers in Australia while Facebook said Thursday it has blocked users in the country from viewing or sharing news.  What Is Happening in Australia?  
Facing a proposed law to compel internet companies to pay news organizations, Google has announced deals with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and Seven West Media. No financial details were released. The Australian Broadcasting Corp. is in negotiations.  
Google accounts for 53% percent of Australian online advertising revenue and Facebook 23%, according to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.  
Google had threatened to make its search engine unavailable in Australia in response to the legislation, which would create a panel to make pricing decisions on news.  
On Thursday, Facebook responded by blocking users from accessing and sharing Australian news.
Facebook said the proposed law “ignores the realities” of its relationship with publishers that use its service to “share news content.” That was despite Frydenberg saying this week Google and Facebook “do want to enter into these commercial arrangements.”  What Is Happening in Other Countries?  
Australia’s proposed law would be the first of its kind, but other governments also are pressuring Google, Facebook and other internet companies to pay news outlets and other publishers for material.  
In Europe, Google had to negotiate with French publishers after a court last year upheld an order saying such agreements were required by a 2019 European Union copyright directive.
France is the first government to enforce the rules, but the decision suggests Google, Facebook and other companies will face similar requirements in other parts of the 27-nation trade bloc.
 
Google and a group of French publishers have announced a framework agreement for the American company to negotiate licensing deals with individual publishers. The company has deals with outlets including the newspaper Le Monde and the weekly magazine l’Obs.  
Last year, Facebook announced it would pay U.S. news organizations including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and USA Today for headlines. No financial details were released.  
In Spain, Google shut down its news website after a 2014 law required it to pay publishers.  Why Does This Matter?  
Developments in Australia and Europe suggest the financial balance between multibillion-dollar internet companies and news organizations might be shifting.
Australia is responding to complaints internet companies should share advertising and other revenue connected to news reports, magazine articles and other content that appears on their websites or is shared by users.  
The government acted after its competition regulator tried and failed to negotiate a voluntary payment plan with Google. The proposed law would create a panel to make binding decisions on the price of news reports to help give individual publishers more negotiating leverage with global internet companies.What Does This Mean for The Public?
Google’s agreement means a new revenue stream for news outfits, but whether that translates into more coverage for readers, viewers and listeners is unclear.
The union for Australian journalists is calling on media companies to make sure online revenue goes into news gathering.
“Any monies from these deals need to end up in the newsroom, not the boardroom,” said Marcus Strom, president of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. “We will be pressing the case for transparency on how these funds are spent.”
In the meantime, access occasionally could suffer: Facebook’s move Thursday initially blocked some Australian commercial and government communications pages.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) Thursday launched its 2021 COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (SPRP) designed to help all nations fight the pandemic and is seeking nearly $2 billion in donations to fund it.This is the second such initiative, coming just over a year after the first one was announced.  At a news conference in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the 2020 strategic plan raised $1.58 billion from WHO members and other donors.Tedros said those funds were allocated to nations and regions throughout the world, helping those at the front lines of the pandemic.He said this year’s COVID-19 SPRP will have six objectives: suppressing transmission of the virus, reducing exposure, countering COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation, protect the vulnerable, reduce death and illness, and accelerate equitable access to new tools to fight the virus — including vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.The WHO chief said the agency needs to raise $1.96 billion to meet those objectives. He said most of that funding — $1.2 billion — would go into WHO’s Access to COVID –19 Tools (ACT) accelerator program, designed to equitably distribute medicines, treatments and technology to all nations.Tedros urged donors to contribute, saying it was more than just charity.“Fully funding the SPRP is not just an investment in responding to COVID-19, it’s an investment in the global recovery and in building the architecture to prepare for, prevent and mitigate future health emergencies,” he said. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.
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Pushed to the back of Gen Z anxieties by the COVID-19 pandemic, a looming stressor for many people younger than 30 remains climate change, say experts. 
 
“Natural disasters precipitated by climate change, including hurricanes, heatwaves, wildfires, and floods can lead to … increased rates of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and other mental health disorders,” according to researchers at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University in Canada, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. FILE – Firefighters battle the Morton Fire as it burns a home near Bundanoon, New South Wales, Australia, Jan. 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) 
The authors label the fear “eco-anxiety, climate distress, climate change anxiety, or climate anxiety,” writing in the respected British medical and science journal, The Lancet Planetary Health. 
 
In other words, the future is not looking bright from the perspective of many people under 30. 
 
Xiye Bastida, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, has been fighting the climate crisis since her hometown in Mexico flooded when she was 13. She calls it a pivotal moment in her environmental activism. 
 
“Sometimes we don’t realize when we actually start caring about something and acting upon it,” she said. 
 
Mexican-Chilean Bastida is one of the founding members of the New York City chapter of Fridays for Future, a strike movement that pressures public officials about climate change by protesting outside schools and government offices. She is also the co-founder of Re-Earth Initiative, which seeks to educate the public about climate issues.
 
Bastida’s generation might be more likely than adults to experience climate anxiety, the Lancet Planetary Health paper states.  
 
“They are at a crucial point in their physical and psychological development,” the authors wrote, “when … stress and everyday anxiety elevate their risk of developing depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders.”  
 
Bastida said she has experienced eco-anxiety and burnout from climate activism. She ended up in the hospital with heart palpitations because she was so stressed, she told VOA.  
 
“For me, the way I experienced and dealt with climate anxiety was just by always blaming myself for not doing enough,” Bastida explained.  
 
She continued, “If you don’t take care of yourself, if you don’t take care of your home, if you don’t take care of your well-being, you cannot take care of the world.” 
 
“Climate change is rapidly creating a less safe, less secure [food security, national security], less healthy, and less prosperous world,” Edward Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication (4C), wrote to VOA.  
 
“Today’s young people will be living in this world, as conditions deteriorate, unless the nations of the world rise to the challenge they currently face. 
 
“In my view, young people who don’t care about climate change are not paying attention,” he wrote. 
 
But many young people are paying attention and trying to effect change. The children and grandchildren of those who planted trees for the creation of Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, are giving environmental justice a hard push forward.  
 
The movement has been propelled by young people everywhere.FILE – Climate change environmental activist Greta Thunberg joins Red Cloud Indian School student and activist Tokata Iron Eyes at a youth panel at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, North Dakota, Oct. 8, 2019.Sweden’s Greta Thunberg riveted global attention as she sat outside a Swedish Parliament meeting, her expression capturing the impatient disgust of her generation with inactivity over climate change.  
 
Other famous young environmentalists include Canadian Autumn Peltier from the First Nations community, Argentinian Bruno Rodriguez, and Helena Gualinga from the Ecuadorian Amazon. FILE – Young environmental activists Ayakha Melithafa of S. Africa, Naomi Wadler of the US, Autumn Peltier of Canada and Melati Wijsen of Indonesia take part in a forum during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 20, 2020. 
Nikayla Jefferson is a volunteer writer for the Sunrise Movement, co-founder of the San Diego hub, and a doctoral candidate at University of California-Santa Barbara. For her, the scariest part of climate change is basic, she says. 
 
“The total loss of human life and the land that gives us our history and story,” she said. “We understand climate change science and how devastating it is to the Earth, but addressing carbon emissions is not enough,” Jefferson wrote to VOA. “We need to look at climate change through a human lens because climate change is the not the only existential threat people are facing.”  
 
Anxiety about climate change and a desire to act erases political lines, according to research from Pew, Brookings Institution and 4C. In the 2020 presidential election, climate change was among the top three issues to young voters. COVID-19, Race, Climate Change Dominate Youth Vote IssuesStudent debt polls lower in face of news events 
And 4C’s Maibach says that youth leadership about climate change has woven generations together on the issue. 
 
“Politicians and CEOs alike have every reason to want to keep young people happy, because they won’t keep their jobs for long if they don’t,” Maibach wrote. As the percentage of younger votes eclipses those of Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, the Gen Z and millennial vote becomes more powerful. 
 
“CEOs are not directly accountable to the public, but corporations are becoming increasingly sensitive to public opinion, especially that of young people, because they want to attract the best and brightest young people as employees, and they want to earn the loyalty of young customers,” Maibach wrote.  
 
While Bastida said she still worries about the future, she looks on the bright side and believes her generation can have an impact.   
 
“I think that we have to realize that that timeline is already running out,” she said. “And we cannot just keep talking about what we’re going to do, we need to actually start doing it. And when I see people actually doing things, when I see initiatives coming up, when I see companies changing their whole business model, that’s what makes me optimistic.”  
 
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Facebook is blocking Australian users from sharing or viewing news content amid a dispute over a proposed law.  Australia wants tech giants like Facebook and Google to pay for the content reposted from news outlets.“A bombshell decision” is how Facebook’s move is being reported in Australia.  The social media giant said it was banning Australians from sharing and reading news stories on its platform with a “heavy heart.”   The government in Canberra, though, has said it won’t back down.  Ministers have said the Facebook ban highlighted the “immense market power of these digital social giants.”  About 17 million Australians visit Facebook every month.The media bargaining code legislation has already been passed by the lower house of the Australian parliament and is expected to receive final approval by the upper chamber, the Senate, next week.  It would make Australia the first country to force big tech firms to pay for news content.  Communications Minister Paul Fletcher is scathing about Facebook’s actions.“Facebook needs to think very carefully about what this means for its reputation and standing,” Fletcher said. “They are effectively saying on our platform there will not be any information from organizations which employ paid journalists.  They are effectively saying any information that is available on our site does not come from these reliable sources.”The progress of Australia’s social media laws is reportedly being closely followed in other parts of the world, including Canada and the European Union.Facebook said the legislation “fundamentally misunderstands” the relationship between itself and publishers.  Large technology companies, including Google, have argued that by using stories from other publishers they generate more internet traffic and revenue for the websites run by traditional media outlets.   They have complained that as their advertising revenues have collapsed, social media platforms have benefited from their quality journalism without paying for it.  In contrast to Facebook, Google has this week signed multi-million dollar deals with three major Australian broadcasters and publishers.
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A new study shows the new Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is effective against the South African variant of the virus, although it generates a slightly lower immune response.   In a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers with Pfizer and the University of Texas Medical Branch created a version of the virus that carried the same mutations found in the South African variant dubbed B.1.35.1.  They tested the engineered virus against blood samples from people who had received both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.  FILE – A Walgreens pharmacist prepares a syringe with COVID-19 vaccine in Coral Gables, Fla., Jan. 12, 2021.The results found the vaccine’s ability to produce antibodies was reduced by two-thirds, compared with its effect on the most common version of the virus. In a separate letter published in the NEJM, U.S. drugmaker Moderna says it has discovered similar results with its two-dose COVID-19 vaccine in fighting the B.1.35.1 variant.  Pfizer and BioNTech issued a statement saying they were making the necessary investments and talking with regulators in anticipation of developing an updated version of the vaccine or a booster shot.   FILE – A staff member works during a media tour of a new factory built to produce a COVID-19 vaccine, at Sinovac, in Beijing, China, Sept. 24, 2020.Hong Kong OKs Sinovac’s vaccineMeanwhile, Hong Kong has formally granted emergency use authorization to Chinese-based Sinovac’s coronavirus vaccine.The drug’s approval came after the city’s special advisory panel on COVID-19 vaccines recommended its use despite the fact the company has not publicly released the results of a late-stage clinical trial to determine the vaccine’s true effectiveness. The panel says it has received data from Sinovac showing the two-dose vaccine has an efficacy rate of just over 62% when administered 28 days apart — a number far better than the 50% efficacy rate reported from late-stage trials conducted in Brazil, the very threshold recommended by the World Health Organization.  The first batch of one million doses of Sinovac vaccine are expected to arrive Friday, with inoculations expected to begin exactly one week later.   
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Facebook has blocked Australian account holders from viewing or sharing all news content over a dispute with a government proposal to make digital giants pay domestic news outlets for their content.Thursday’s move by the U.S.-based social media company was made despite ongoing negotiations between Facebook and rival Google with Australian media companies.Facebook regional director Will Easton said in a written statement that the proposed law “fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content.”Easton said the proposal left Facebook “facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter.”The websites of several public agencies and emergency services were also blocked on Facebook, including pages that include up-to-date information on COVID-19 outbreaks, brushfires and other natural disasters.Treasurer Josh Frydenberg tweeted Thursday that he and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg had “a constructive discussion” in which Zuckerberg “raised a few remaining issues” with the government’s news media bargaining code.Australian media companies have seen their advertising revenue increasingly siphoned off by big tech firms like Google and Facebook in recent years.Google had also threatened to block news content if the law were passed, even warning last August that Australians’ personal information could be “at risk” if digital giants had to pay for news content.But the company has already signed a number of separate agreements with such Australian media giants as the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp, Nine Entertainment and Seven West Media.
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The latest NASA probe to Mars is set to land Thursday after a journey that began last July.Perseverance’s entry into the Martian atmosphere was set to start at 3:55 p.m. EST, starting a seven-minute process that scientists hope will be successful. During the landing, NASA has no ability to control the probe.The elaborate landing process involves parachutes, powered descent and a “sky crane,” which is expected to lower Perseverance onto the Martian surface using cables.”I can tell you that Perseverance is operating perfectly right now, and that all systems are go for landing,” Jennifer Trosper, a NASA deputy project manager for the rover mission, said during a press briefing Tuesday.Perseverance is targeting a landing in Jezero Crater, which is believed to be an ancient lakebed. There, it will search for signs of ancient life.The terrain around the landing site is rocky, making landing difficult, but NASA said the probe is up to the challenge.“When the scientists take a look at a site like Jezero Crater, they see the promise, right?” said Al Chen, who is in charge of the entry, descent and landing team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, according to The Associated Press. “When I look at Jezero, I see danger. There’s danger everywhere.”NASA has successfully landed eight of nine probes on Mars.Perseverance is similar in appearance to other Mars rovers, but it carries a helicopter-type drone, Ingenuity, which will test if powered flight on Mars is possible.
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President Joe Biden’s administration has pledged to improve the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. This week, the first federally supported mass vaccination sites opened in California. Matt Dibble reports.
Camera: Matt Dibble     Producer: Matt Dibble
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Facebook announced Thursday it has blocked Australians from viewing and sharing news on the platform because of proposed laws in the country to make digital giants pay for journalism.Australian publishers can continue to publish news content on Facebook, but links and posts can’t be viewed or shared by Australian audiences, the U.S.-based company said in a statement.Australian users cannot share Australian or international news.International users outside Australia also cannot share Australian news.”The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content,” Facebook regional managing director William Easton said.”It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter,” Easton added.The announcement comes a day after Treasurer Josh Frydenberg described as “very promising” negotiations between Facebook and Google with Australian media companies.Frydenberg said after weekend talks with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google, he was convinced that the platforms “do want to enter into these commercial arrangements.”Frydenberg said he had had a “a constructive discussion” with Zuckerberg after Facebook blocked Australian news.”He raised a few remaining issues with the Government’s news media bargaining code and we agreed to continue our conversation to try to find a pathway forward,” Frydenberg tweeted.But communications Minister Paul Fletcher said the government would not back down on its legislative agenda.”This announcement from Facebook, if they were to maintain this position, of course would call into question the credibility of the platform in terms of the news on it,” Fletcher told Australian Broadcasting Corp.”Effectively Facebook is saying to Australians, ‘Information that you see on our platforms does not come from organizations that have editorial policies or fact-checking processes or journalists who are paid to do the work they do,’” Fletcher added.The Australian Parliament is debating proposed laws that would make the two platforms strike deals to pay for Australian news.The Senate will consider the draft laws after they were passed by the House of Representatives late Wednesday.Both platforms have condemned the proposed laws as unworkable. Google has also threatened to remove its search engine from the country.But Google is striking pay deals with Australian news media companies under its own News Showcase model.Seven West Media on Monday became the largest Australian news media business to strike a deal with Google to pay for journalism.Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has since announced a wide-ranging deal.Rival Nine Entertainment is reportedly close to its own pact and ABC is also in negotiations.News plays a larger part in Google’s business model than it does in Facebook’s.Easton said the public would ask why the platforms were responding differently to the proposed law that would create an arbitration panel to set a price for news in cases where the platforms and news businesses failed to agree.”The answer is because our platforms have fundamentally different relationships with news,” Easton said.Peter Lewis, director of the Australia Institute’s Center for Responsible Technology think tank, said Facebook’s decision “will make it a weaker social network.””Facebook actions mean the company’s failures in privacy, disinformation, and data protection will require a bigger push for stronger government regulation,” Lewis said. “Without fact-based news to anchor it, Facebook will become little more than cute cats and conspiracy theories.”  
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