What might it mean that Facebook has restricted publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing news content?

Some @risj_oxford research

First, 71% in Australia say they've used FB in the past week, 39% say they've engaged with news on FB

The 39% who have engaged with news on FB tend to be younger, women, more on the political left

Most access online news in many ways (direct,search,social,etc), but @dragz have run the numbers, and in 2020, 8% of 🇦🇺 internet news users say they ONLY get online news via social 2/9

That's maybe a million+ people? They can go elsewhere for news, but some won't. That's a big blow right there. As
we've shown, the effect of incidental exposure on e.g. Facebook is stronger for younger people and those with low interest in news.
https://t.co/Sq8wKz9HsZ 3/9

What will they see instead? Probably mostly family and friends (and ads), given FB has for years dialed back news in the NewsFeed. But some of them perhaps more misinformation. As @jsbrennen et al showed, some #covid19 misinfo does well on social

What will it mean for publishers? Hard to tell, but perhaps 2017 UK tracking data give indication. As @nicnewman and @antoniskalog showed, in UK, a few big publishers dominate direct discovery, whereas social (and search) referrals are bit more diverse