Written in February 2021 during Facebook’s week-long removal of Australian news content, which was subsequently reversed. On February 18, 2021, Australian businesses, government agencies, and news organisations woke up to empty Facebook pages.
The Bureau of Meteorology. The ABC. News.com.au. Queensland Health. All of them — pages with hundreds of thousands of followers — completely stripped of content overnight, without warning.
Facebook had flipped a switch in response to Australia’s proposed media bargaining legislation, and the consequences were immediate and visible.
We Don’t Own Our Audience on Facebook
Here’s the hard truth that this event exposed: the audience you’ve built on Facebook isn’t really yours. You’re renting space on someone else’s platform — and they can change the terms, or pull the plug, at any time.
Every business that relies primarily on social media for customer communication faces this risk. Your followers, your posts, your engagement — all of it exists at the discretion of a third party.
What to Do Instead
This doesn’t mean abandoning social media. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are genuinely valuable for visibility, reach, and engagement. But they should supplement your owned digital assets, not replace them.
Your website is yours. A self-hosted website (not one on a builder platform like Wix or Weebly, but a proper hosted site you control) is a digital asset that no platform can take away from you. It’s where your content should live.
Your email list is yours. An email database of customers and prospects is one of the most valuable things a business can own. When a social platform removes your reach, email still works. Prioritise capturing email addresses at every touchpoint.
Drive traffic to destinations you control. Use social media as a channel to direct people to your website, your email newsletter, your blog. Don’t let your social profile be the final destination.
The Broader Lesson
Social media platforms give us an enormous amount of technology for free — publishing tools, live video, advertising, community groups, analytics. That’s genuinely valuable, and it makes sense to use it.
But the Facebook news blackout was a reminder that when we build on borrowed land, we live by someone else’s rules. The businesses best protected from platform risk are the ones with strong, owned digital foundations: a quality website, an email list, and content that lives somewhere they control.
If you’re not sure how your business would fare if a key platform disappeared tomorrow, let’s talk. Blue Platypus can help you build a digital strategy that’s resilient, owned, and built to last. Read more about our digital marketing services.
