Multiple Facebook pages from a number of important Dubbo institutions had their ability to share content with the community removed on Thursday morning.
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As part of Facebook following through on its threat to ban Australians sharing news on its platforms, a number of Dubbo organisations can no longer access their online social media pages.
Among those already impacted include NALAG NSW, Airlink and StayintheBush, while nationally pages such as health departments, the bureau of meteorology and Harvey Norman were also impacted.
The pages could no longer post and Facebook users can not see any of their content, however access was starting to be restored to some of these pages just after midday.
Media Pages including the Daily Liberal and ABC Western Plains remain inaccessible
Adventure Digital announced on their Facebook page, which hadn't been impacted, that many of their clients pages were being affected.
Adventure Digital founder Leanne O'Sullivan said it was 'a terrible thing that has happened' and she was 'shocked' by how quickly it happened.
"We have seen a number of sites that aren't news that have been affected by this 'push of the big red button'.
"It's a dreadful thing for small businesses, and if it stays then PR is gone from small businesses."
Ms O'Sullivan said users of Facebook had become so accustomed to using the platform that they didn't really understand the impact it would have before it happened.
"Facebook has always been free, that's always been part of the model, that you then pay for ads, but people have been using it for free [to advertise their business].
"But it's a business."
She said she has been watching the arguments with Facebook and the Government, and thought it could happen, but not overnight like it did.
"I never thought that when we turned it on this morning it would have happened. I am surprised that their was no warning, I thought there might be a heads up to give us the opportunity to let people know where to find their news."
A Facebook spokesperson said on Thursday that some Facebook pages were not meant to be caught up in the bans.
"Government pages should not be impacted," the spokesman said.
"As the law does not provide clear guidance on the definition of news content, we have taken a broad definition in order to respect the law as drafted.
"However, we will reverse any pages that are inadvertently affected."
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