FACEBOOK FACES GLOBAL CONDEMNATION FOR ‘BULLYING’ AUSTRALIA

Facebook's decision to block people from sharing news in Australia has been rebuked by lawmakers around the world, raising the specter of a much wider showdown between the world's biggest social media platform and the governments and news organizations fighting to check its power, Hanna Ziady reported for CNN Business.

Elected officials and media publishers in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and the United States slammed Facebook's actions on Thursday, suggesting they were anti-competitive and underscored the need for a regulatory crackdown.

"It is one of the most idiotic but also deeply disturbing corporate moves of our lifetimes," Julian Knight, the lawmaker who chairs the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in Britain's parliament, told broadcaster Sky News.

In a statement shared with CNN Business, Knight said that UK lawmakers will use pending legislation aimed at regulating social media companies to ensure platforms such as Facebook promote "trusted news sources."

"This action — this bully boy action — that [Facebook has] undertaken in Australia will I think ignite a desire to go further amongst legislators around the world," he added in an interview with Reuters.

David Cicilline, a Democratic congressman from Rhode Island who chairs the House Antitrust Subcommittee, echoed that sentiment. He said that "if it is not already clear," Facebook's actions in Australia demonstrate that the company "is not compatible with democracy."

He added: "Threatening to bring an entire country to its knees to agree to Facebook's terms is the ultimate admission of monopoly power."

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