Last week, Facebook dramatically escalated the long-simmering feud between traditional media and big-tech barons. Australian Facebook users opening the platform on Thursday morning found they could no longer see or share any current-affairs content.

The bans inadvertently swept up multiple government and nongovernment organizations in their net. The Bureau of Meteorology and the Australian Council of Trade Unions found their pages stripped of content. Facebook also emptied pages belonging to the Royal Children’s Hospital and the Western Australian Department of Fire and Emergency Services, even though they are coordinating responses to the pandemic and a rabid bushfire season, respectively.

Facebook’s gamble was unquestionably dangerous, and many have decried it as a daft move. A chorus of commentators rang out against Facebook on Thursday. The broadsheet of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, The Australian, published an op-ed labelling the ban “a breathtaking act of corporate arrogance against the Australian people.” The News Media Association, peak body for the traditional mastheads in the UK, called it “a classic example of a monopoly power being the schoolyard bully.”