Facebook says it did not intend to ban government pages – as it happened

Social media giant says it is blocking pages over proposed news code but did not intend to ban government pages. This blog is now closed

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7.58am GMT

With that, I will leave you for the day. Here's a recap of today's news:

7.30am GMT

At 5.30am Australian east coast time, after months of threats and failed attempts to lobby the government over proposed new media laws, Facebook banned the sharing of news in Australia.

The first to notice were morning news producers. The main page of the national broadcaster, ABC, was down. Guardian Australia's page was also down. Australians trying to post links to news publishers on their personal Facebook pages received an error message.

Related: 'Time to reactivate MySpace': the day Australia woke up to a Facebook news blackout