Google: Open Letter to Australians • Hacker News Board

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#101

Post by zmmmmm » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

> News media businesses alone would be given information that would help them artificially inflate their ranking over everyone else, even when someone else provides a better result

I'm not sure how Google wins this one because it seems like an easy comeback is "well why don't you just be transparent and tell everybody that information". Ultimately, as long as they have anything resembling "secret sauce" they will be in the cross hairs of regulators for unfair treatment (even if just alleged, not proven), and the minute they don't they will lose their competitive advantage.

Perhaps the worst thing seems to me that it prospectively constrains what kinds of algorithms they can actually apply to things they can tell people about. So all kinds of approaches with poor explainability (say, deep learning) will get put aside for things that are empirically worse (more biased, unfair, less equitable, etc.) but compliant with the law because Google can "explain them" to people.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#102

Post by JoshTriplett » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #96

triceratops wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government that mandates backdoors in every software product? That government?[1] 1. https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-...

While I vocally opposed that piece of legislation (and are included in the public comments collection), that is not an accurate description of the law. The government that can force you to add backdoors in certain circumstances, and you cannot tell people about it. Yes that is utterly abhorrent, but that isn't the same as "government mandated backdoors in every software product" -- though funnily enough, the US Senat…

If you aren't allowed to know the difference, there's no meaningful difference, and certainly not a difference worth defending.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#103

Post by waheoo » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

deminature wrote: post #49

iamshs wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God forbid if Sky News corners a prominent real estate in my Youtube results, they are already atrocious and have insufferable comments.

Sky News is almost more virulently ignorant and hateful than Fox News. I'm shocked Australia - a generally 'nice' country - is capable of producing something like this.

You do realise both Sky News and Fox are owned by Murdoch right?

Its all the same shit.

Our media here is a joke, even our govt funded "for the people" news org is massive biased toward the liberal party.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#104

Post by lancewiggs » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:27 AM UTC

I am delighted at whatever law is driving that letter and want to lobby to introduce the same law here in NZ.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#105

Post by BLKNSLVR » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:28 AM UTC

neumann wrote: post #100

stirlo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fairfax has always provided a counter to newscorp and there's no reason this funding wouldn't be available to any new players that wanted to start up.

There is no Fairfax since 2018, and even then Gina Reinhart owned 20% then. Now, it's channel 9, and having Peter Costello at the helm. So... Yeah, we don't really have a balanced or neutral media landscape. The ABC, The Guardian and a small selection of boutique papers and websites are alone in putting journalism before explicit political narratives now. And well, even the first two in that list heavily rely on clic…

I feel obliged to mention Crikey here, mainly because it's quite low-key but deserving of wider readership.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#106

Post by vermilingua » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:29 AM UTC

ThinkBeat wrote: post #31

I think, the best solution here will be for Google to sell all its assets and business in Australia to a company to be named by the Australian prime minister. If they wish to continue to offer search there that is.

That would be NewsCorp. I really hope your comment is a joke.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#107

Post by Arbalest » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:30 AM UTC

stirlo wrote: post #52

reaperducer wrote: post #43

To all the people (hopefully Australians) who paint this as the government propping up legacy media: Isn't it better to have control of your media in local, Australian-owned and regulated megacorps, rather than some faceless megacorp in another country?

^ This. I'm hearing heaps of people crying "Murdock" and "Newscorp" but how about local jobs and ownership vs a global conglomerate that doesn't give 2 f#%ks about our tiny 25 million population and takes $4.8 billion offshore while paying only $100 million tax[1]. The Australian Associate Press recently went bankrupt and needed a bailout from philanthropists[2]. As much as you dislike one particular section of old m…

Newscorp isn't Australian though, it was just started by one.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#108

Post by dontblink » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:30 AM UTC

DoctorNick wrote: post #98

gitgud wrote: post #91

I initially thought this was going to be about the new [1] anti-encryption law's in Australia... another concerning matter of government intervention... [1] https://fee.org/articles/australia-s-unprecedented-encryptio...

nope, Google doesn't give a shit about that. They just hate having to pay for displaying content from news media.

Rightly so. This is a shakedown by Murdoch

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#109

Post by actuator » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:31 AM UTC

> You trust us with your data and our job is to keep it safe. Under this law, Google has to tell news media businesses “how they can gain access” to data about your use of our products.

This corpspeak wording seems very broad. I wonder what Australia is gunning at here, if they are really asking Google/FB to share user insights about users visiting these news sites, that doesn't sit well with me as an user.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#110

Post by vermilingua » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 4:31 AM UTC

duud wrote: post #51

vmception wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It appears they've blocked access to it from non-Australian IPs. Wow, just turned on my residential VPN and selected my Australian server, can confirm it does load. Didn't even have to clear cookies. Very sketchy google. Even if the Australian law has issues and alternatives cannot deliver for free, I would not support Google aims here. They are the big news business they are gaslighting into Australians into being…

They're not gaslighting. This is about News Corp (former owner of Fox News) and a few other multi billion dollar albeit unprofitable media companies using their political sway to extort Google. It will almost certainly result in a worse experience for consumers.

Why is this being downvoted, it's precisely correct. Our government is entirely transparent about how heavily influenced it is by its industry "partners". Murdoch (NewsCorp/Fox) has been dictating policy to the Liberal Party for a long time.