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In a surprise retaliatory move Thursday, Facebook blocked Australians from sharing news stories, escalating a fight with the government over whether powerful tech companies should have to pay news organizations for content.

Australia鈥檚 government condemned the step, which also blocked some government communications, including messages about emergency services, and some commercial pages.

The digital platforms fear that what鈥檚 happening in Australia will become an expensive precedent for other countries as governments revamp laws to catch up with the fast changing digital world.

Facebook acted after the House of Representatives passed legislation that would make it and Google pay for Australian journalism, said Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. He said he was given no warning before Facebook acted. The legislation must be passed by the Senate to become law.

Australian news organizations could not post stories and people who tried to share existing news stories got notifications saying they were blocked from doing so.

鈥淭his post can鈥檛 be shared,鈥� the website said. 鈥淚n response to Australian government legislation, Facebook restricts the posting of news links and all posts from news Pages in Australia. Globally, the posting and sharing of news links from Australian publications is restricted.鈥�

The legislation mentioned by the notice has not yet been enacted.

鈥淔acebook鈥檚 actions were unnecessary, they were heavy-handed, and they will damage its reputation here in Australia,鈥� Mr. Frydenberg said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison lashed out on his own Facebook page.

鈥淔acebook鈥檚 actions to unfriend Australia today, cutting off essential information services on health and emergency services, were as arrogant as they were disappointing,鈥� Mr. Morrison posted.

鈥淭hese actions will only confirm the concerns that an increasing number of countries are expressing about the behavior of BigTech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them. They may be changing the world, but that doesn鈥檛 mean they run it,鈥� he added. 鈥淲e will not be intimidated by BigTech seeking to pressure our Parliament.鈥�

Facebook said the proposed Australian law 鈥渇undamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it.鈥�

鈥淭his is an assault on a sovereign nation,鈥� Health Minster Greg Hunt told Parliament. 鈥淚t is an assault on people鈥檚 freedom and, in particular, it鈥檚 an utter abuse of big technologies鈥� market power and control over technology.鈥�

The government contends the proposed News Media Bargaining Code will ensure media businesses will be paid fairly for journalism linked online. Both Google and Facebook had threatened to retaliate.

Australia鈥檚 proposal requires a negotiation safety net through an arbitration panel. The digital giants would not be able to abuse their dominant negotiating positions by making take-it-or-leave-it payment offers to news businesses for their journalism. In case of a standoff, the panel would make a binding decision on a winning offer.

Google had threatened to remove its search functions from Australia because it said the proposed law was unworkable. But that threat has faded as Google has worked out licensing content deals with Australian media companies under its own News Showcase model.

Rupert Murdoch鈥檚 News Corp. announced a wide-ranging deal with Google on Wednesday. Major Australian media organization Seven West Media reached a deal earlier in the week. Their rival Nine Entertainment is reportedly close to its own pact, and state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corp. is in negotiations.

The government accused Facebook of endangering public safety by temporarily blocking state emergency services messaging on a day when there were severe fire and flood warnings in various parts of Australia.

The Bureau of Meteorology鈥檚 weather warnings, a Hobart women鈥檚 shelter and the Betoota Advocate, and a satirical website named after an Australian ghost town, were among those surprised to find their content blocked at least temporarily.

Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said he told Facebook the government expects access to its pages to be restored.

鈥淭he fact that there are organizations like state health departments, fire and emergency services ... who have had their Facebook pages blocked, that鈥檚 a public safety issue,鈥� Mr. Fletcher said.

Facebook said in a statement: 鈥淎ny pages that are inadvertently impacted, we鈥檒l look to reverse.鈥�

Health Minster Greg Hunt said the Royal Children鈥檚 Hospital in Melbourne still didn鈥檛 have its feed fixed after more than eight hours.

Mr. Frydenberg said he had 鈥渃onstructive鈥� discussions with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg after the content blocking began.

鈥淗e did explain to me that they had concerns with aspects of the code, and it goes to the interpretation of some of its elements. And he will come back to me with some more considered views,鈥� Mr. Frydenberg said.

He said the government remains committed to the code that is yielding generous payment deals with Google for Australian media.

鈥淥ther countries are watching, but also Google and Facebook and other digital giants are very focused on what it means, as far as a precedent goes, for other countries,鈥� Mr. Frydenberg said.

News Corp. said it would receive 鈥渟ignificant payments鈥� from Google under the three-year agreement, which includes heavyweight news organizations throughout the English-speaking world such as The Wall Street Journal and New York Post in the United States, the Times and the Sun in the United Kingdom, and The Australian and Sky News in Australia. The deal spans audio and video and News Corp. also will get an ad revenue share from Google.

Mr. Frydenberg said after weekend talks with Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google, that he was convinced the platforms 鈥渄o want to enter into these commercial arrangements.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 a massive step forward we have seen this week,鈥� Mr. Frydenberg said of the Google deals.

鈥淏ut if this was easy, every other country in the world would have done it already. But they haven鈥檛,鈥� he said.

This story was reported by The Associated Press.聽