Facebook vs government. Who got hurt, who won?

Neither the government nor Facebook has fought quite this kind of battle before. No matter who won, Facebook looked pretty ludicrous as it whacked innocent parties which included the screen sector.

Sonia Bible is the writer and director of The Witch of Kings Cross. Over the last week, her past has been stolen by a monster. On her personal Facebook page she wrote, ‘The Facebook page for my film has been removed by Facebook, all that history, all those images vanished. A week after releasing the film. It’s a site for a documentary film and Facebook says it’s a news site. Gone! Just like that. ‘

A lot of people feel the same way. Producer Sue Maslin, currently releasing Why Did She Have to Tell the World?  has lost all her posts about her features and documentaries. ‘The pissoff,’ she said, ‘is the broad sweep they have taken which affects any organisation which wants to share meaningful content to its base.’

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David Tiley was the Editor of Screenhub from 2005 until he became Content Lead for Film in 2021 with a special interest in policy. He is a writer in screen media with a long career in educational programs, documentary, and government funding, with a side order in script editing. He values curiosity, humour and objectivity in support of Australian visions and the art of storytelling.