I am sure we have all been looking at Facebook pages that now have no content, because Mark Zuckerberg appears to have thrown his toys out of his pram, reminding me of the behaviour of a spoilt child!
His actions and subsequent apology, by the way not by him, but by one of his PR minions, also suggests the same, as he did not apologise!
His actions also seem to indicate that the technology behind Facebook may not be that clever, which is even more frightening when you consider how much Facebook knows about us, because it appears that what some might say was a silly, temper tantrum news ban, also banned many hundreds of pages that were not news at all, that Facebook said they did not intend to ban, with many of those pages desperately needed by their users in their day to day lives.
At the same time and what appears to be through Facebook’s own technical ineptitude, just when this great industry of travel is heading for cataclysmic disaster, including here in Australia, Mark Zuckerberg’s actions managed to ban many hundreds or even thousands of travel-related pages and the list is very long.
So, do you see what I mean about reminding me of behaving like a spoilt child, because if he and his colleagues were professional and knew what they were doing, they would have banned the pages they wanted to ban, not the ones they have managed to in error!
I wonder whether he just wanted to teach Australia a lesson and flicked a switch or pressed a key? Who knows, but the impact has been devastating, with what is also really interesting is that all it has actually done for Mr Zuckerberg is trash Facebook’s and his reputation in Australia, but also perhaps as we are such a small population, maybe he doesn’t really care.
Surely, if he wanted to ban the big news players, that would have been pretty straightforward as there are not many of them, but in effect the ban was immense and across masses of pages that were not, in reality, causing him any issues whatsoever, including all the travel news pages and including Global Travel Media.
So, while Facebook should immediately reinstate all those pages that are not news, I ask the question, can we all live without getting news on Facebook?
Of course, we can, and for travel news, there are plenty of sites you can log into free of charge including www.
After all, Facebook is supposed to be a site through which friends communicate and not a news site, so I think the sooner Facebook reverts back to what it is supposed to be the better.
So, what is my message to the Australian Government in Canberra?
Stand up to Mr Zuckerberg, tell him that in Australia we do no put up with his sort of behaviour, just as a parent would not with a spoilt child, with Australia our home and family not his.
Australia must not give in, again just as with a spoilt child if we did give in, we would never win in the future and they and in this case, Mark Zuckerberg would walk all over us!
An opinion report by John Alwyn-Jones
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