The Australian Greens have pushed for TikTok, Apple News, and Instagram to be included in Australia’s news media bargaining code to ensure fair compensation for news producers, amidst Meta’s refusal to engage in new payment deals with publishers. This call for an updated code reflects the evolving landscape of news consumption, with Meta’s stance sparking government concern over its commitment to supporting news outlets.

Concurrently, Facebook and Instagram users in the UK and globally faced widespread outages, affecting access and causing login issues. Reports indicated over 30,000 complaints in the UK alone. Meta, the parent company, addressed the technical problems, attributing them to a glitch and not a cyber attack, with services being restored after approximately two hours.

The outages prompted a significant response on social media, with discussions around the societal reliance on these platforms for communication and information sharing. It also led to humorous and concerned reactions from users and public figures alike, including a jest from tech mogul Elon Musk towards Meta.

As discussions around the inclusion of more platforms in Australia’s bargaining code continue, and Meta works to prevent future outages, these incidents highlight the complexities of the digital age in terms of media consumption, platform responsibility, and the technical vulnerabilities of globally used social media services.