SYDNEY, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Australians woke to empty newsfeeds in their Facebook Inc accounts on Thursday afterthe social media giant blocked all local media content in asurprise and dramatic escalation of a dispute with thegovernment over paying for content.

The move was swiftly criticised by several local mediaoutlets and lawmakers, many of whom pointed out that officialhealth department pages and government meteorology pages hadalso been scrubbed - during the coronavirus pandemic and at theheight of Australia's summer bushfire season.

"So Facebook can instantly block @abcperth, @6PR, @BOM_au,@BOM_WA, AND @dfes_wa in the middle of the #bushfire season, butthey can't take down murderous gun crime videos? Incredible.Unbelievable. Unacceptable. The arrogance," wrote MadeleineKing, a federal opposition member of parliament from WesternAustralia, in a tweet.

Lisa Davies, editor of daily The Sydney Morning Heraldnewspaper, owned by Nine Entertainment Co Ltd, tweeted:"Well, that's a tantrum. Facebook has exponentially increasedthe opportunity for misinformation, dangerous radicalism andconspiracy theories to abound on its platform."

The Facebook pages of Nine, News Corp, and thegovernment-funded Australian Broadcasting Corp, which acts as acentral information source during natural disasters, were blank.

The Facebook pages of the Queensland and South Australiastate health departments, where a quarter of the country's 25million population are directed for reliable information aboutCOVID-19, were similarly blank.

The Bureau of Meteorology, an official source for adviceabout bushfire danger, flooding and other natural disasters, wasalso scrubbed.

Facebook's drastic move comes ahead of the likely impositionof an Australia law that would require Big Tech firms, includingGoogle, to reach commercial deals with Australian news outletsto use their content, or be subjected to forced arbitration.

Facebook said in its statement that the law "fundamentallymisunderstands" the relationship between itself and publishers.

Google, owned by Alphabet Inc, had previouslythreatened to pull out of Australia because of the looming law,but has in recent days signed deals with several media outlets.

(Reporting by Byron Kaye; editing by Jane Wardell)