As part of Facebook following through on its threat to ban Australians sharing news on its platforms, a number of Ballarat organisations can no longer access their online social media pages.

Among those already out of order on Thursday morning are health group pages, a high school, police pages, sporting groups and council pages.

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These pages can no longer post and Facebook users can not see any of their content.

Media pages including The Courier, ABC Ballarat, Power FM and 3BA are also banned.

Some of the non-media pages that have already had their access restricted are:

A Commerce Ballarat spokesperson said they hoped Facebook will be more measured with their response in the coming days.

"There seems to be a serious lack of technical understanding from our Federal Government, and it appears no-one considered the obvious fall out for small and medium enterprises. Most 'news' publishers rely on Facebook distribution from travel/tourism websites to sports publications to community new services," they said in a statement.

"Businesses, including our own not-for-profit organisation, who have come to rely on social media as a core part of their business model are now greatly impacted with few cost effective marketing channels to transition to.

"We sincerely hope the Federal Government will reassess their legislation because if Google commits to their threat of pulling Australia from Google search the impact on business is incomprehensible.

"We also hope Facebook is more measured with their response in the coming days. They need to correct their algorithm because at the moment it is incorrectly barring many public health and emergency service pages, which is simply irresponsible from a leading global business and platform aimed at sharing information."

It also sent information to members on how to retrieve a lost page.

"If your page has been unduly impacted (you are not a news site), submit a report to Facebook here: https://m.facebook.com/help/2579891418969617

"Facebook is conducting a manual review of all impacted pages on February 25.

"If your page hasn't been impacted, be extra careful what you try to share from it.

"For the moment, we'd recommend avoiding links altogether until we can get a clearer picture of the situation going forward.

Unsure if your page has been impacted? If you're an admin it will currently look normal so ask a friend or colleague who is not admin of the page to check it for you."

Ballarat Body and Soul Genesis 24/7's owner Mel Tempest said she had spent tens of thousands of dollars on Facebook advertising over the past 10 years, only to find her business page had been removed this morning.

"Zuckerberg is out to prove a point, and unfortunately Ballarat businesses, Australian businesses, are going to suffer," she said.

"It's the most bizarre situation ever - we're a gym, we've been in Ballarat for 17 years.

"This is not a good time for any business to have social media shut down - a lot of businesses have invested money in their social media platforms so they can get people back into their businesses.

"Facebook's taken our money then shut us down."

She encouraged all Facebook page admins to immediately check to see if they had been affected by going to the page's "view as visitor" button.

"An hour and a half ago, I was posting on the page with a video, a page-sponsored ad, and 45 minutes later, (a consumer) sent me a screenshot," she said.

"I own the page, when I view the page, it looks normal to me, had the consumer not told me I would not have known.

"Any business owner sitting there right now thinking that's ok, my business hasn't been affected - this isn't over yet, this will be prolonged."

A St Patrick's College spokesperson said there was no notice before their page, with 7000 followers, was wiped.

"Like other community organisations, we're blindsided by it," they said.

"We're not a news organisation - we're a school.

"We're unsure about what we can do as our next move.

"Thankfully we've got other community channels we can access."

Not-for-profit family violence support service WRISC was wiped as well, which communications officer Alison Crofts said could have a safety impact.

"We have a website as well, but many people use Facebook, it's a major source of information that's not there," she said.

"The major concern of ours is victim-survivors may go to our page to find information on seeking help and it's not quickly available.

"It tells them how to do that, there's quite a lot of information on how to access help from WRISC and other places after hours, and to call the police.

"We've also got information pinned to the top of the page about how we're providing services during COVID, that's gone.

"The other use we have for our page is an educative-type facility, so that we post things from the media and other sources about family violence that's related to Ballarat, and more broadly - statewide, national, overseas."

City of Ballarat mayor Daniel Moloney said in a statement community members rely on government and emergency sites for critical information - council's Art Gallery of Ballarat and Ballarat Aquatic and Lifestyle Centre pages were also wiped.

"To hold the community to ransom and block their access to critical government and other public sites, seems completely unnecessary and is, at best, irresponsible," he said in a statement.

"We hope access to these sites is restored as soon as possible. In the meantime, residents can access updates through other social media channels, via our website, or by contacting our services directly."

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On a national level, Facebook is copping backlash for blocking the pages of some state and territory health authorities, emergency services and the Bureau of Meteorology amid its ban on Australians sharing news.

Queensland, SA and ACT Health, the WA Fire and Emergency Services were among the pages blocked as the tech giant.

The pages, which provide crucial government health and weather information and alerts, were blocked on Thursday morning.

The Tasmanian and ACT government pages are also blocked, along with the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service 1800 Respect, which is web-based.

Facebook released a statement on Thursday saying the proposed media bargaining code fundamentally misunderstood the relationship between its platform and publishers who used it to share news content.

"It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia," the company's statement said.

"With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter."

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