Australia

Facebook, Google and news. Why Americans should pay attention to Australia. Also, 7 other things worth your time.

Hey, did you hear the news out of Australia?

This is a bit of a bad pun, because the news out of Australia is actually about the lack of news in Australia. A few things happened yesterday:

• First, News Corp announced it’s worked out a deal with Google, where the tech giant will pay for content from sites like The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, The Times and The Sun in the U.K., and in Australia: The Australian, news.com.au, Sky News, and others.

• Second, more bluntly, Facebook announced it won’t allow Australian news organizations to post to Facebook, or allow Australians to post news articles.

• And third—I don’t know whether this is intentional or a glitch—but Facebook’s ban also stopped government websites, satirical brands, and even the Australian national weather service from being able to post.