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Google: Open Letter to Australians

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Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#291

Post by eru »

altindag wrote: post #239
chillfox wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess, is that they will comply by either giving the media a copy of their "Quality Raters Guidelines", or just setup an office where the media can send staff to sit at a slow computer and view a billion lines of source code.

hehehe. yeah the due diligence document room. and lots of minified JavaScript UI code. I love how companies can say complying with legislation would be overly burdensome. and how governments can make laws that have no technical reality. the interface between tech and law is pretty leaky and inefficient.

In theory a tech-competent judge could enforce laws to be closer to technical reality.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#292

Post by mianos »

I'd vote they just delist news.com.au. It's a PIA when some search returns tags.news.com.au that is blocked by pihole. It's a cesspit of news biased news anyway. Sure, other newspapers are biased as hell and many just a voice for some ignorant opinion or blind agenda, but they are quaint in the naivety. News.com.au is an organised propaganda machine.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#293

Post by eru »

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.

Australia ain't a nice country. We moved away partially because of rampant racism.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#294

Post by barry-cotter »

berkes wrote: post #277
discordance wrote: post #119

Google evil etc etc aside, they have been decent custodians of their users data. I don't really want to trust Google, but they behave much better than the Australian government, who recently admitted they spy on their citizens [0], can coerce citizens and companies to install backdoors into their companies software [1]. I trust Murdoch less than the government, and much much less than Google. Remember when Murdoch in…

> I don't really want to trust Google, but they behave much better than the Australian government, If you ignore who does it worst in pracice, the most important argument becomes apparent: The Austrialian government is a democratically assigned entity; one that has (or should have?) checks and balances in place; one that is closely monitored as your various references prove. Google, a foreign private entity has no su…

So what? Democracy isn’t a sacrament, it doesn’t sanctify the government. Hitler was democratically elected. Democracy does not have moral valence as such.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#296

Post by DanBC »

eru wrote: post #286
harry8 wrote: post #221

Open comment from an Australian to google: "Pay your f#$king tax like the rest of us or shut the f%$ck up." This comment stands apart from any and all implications of their special interest policy pleadings above which are all pretty tedious in comparison. Google don't pay tax for profit made selling in Australia. To hell with them and literally any case they have to make.

Google complies with all the relevant laws. If Australians want Google to pay more taxes, they should change the tax laws to make them pay more taxes.

Tax law is what's written in acts and statutes, but also what's developed in case law.

Google's lawyers will claim that Google is compliant with tax law, but until these complex tax avoidance schemes go through the courts we won't know.

Most tax authorities use courts as a measure of last resort, and will prefer to add clarifications to the law and negotiate settlements with avoiding companies rather than spending millions on legal fees for court cases.

Some companies see a regulation and say "that's the bare knuckle minimum expected behaviour that we cannot go below". Other companies see a regulation and say "how far beyond that can we go before we get fined?"

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#297

Post by thu2111 »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #173
dannyw wrote: post #127

Australian here. Fuck News Corp, one of the most corrupt entities in Australia that directly collude and interfere with our elections for the benefit of themselves and Big Coal. I hope Google don’t fuck around.

>corrupt entities in Australia They have also seriously damaged the media in the US and the UK. Its no wonder all 3 countries are having serious issues with news.

That's an anglo-centric perception. Which countries has Google News been banned in? Spain. China. Germany briefly until Google told the news orgs they'd never pay, so could license their content for free or disappear from News and search.

Newspapers trying to screw Google out of money by pressuring politicians is not an Australia or News Corp specific problem. It's happening everywhere. Really, all it reveals is how cravenly controlled by journalists supposedly independent politicians really are. We always "knew" it, but now we know it.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#298

Post by nickcox »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #264
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American politics that they're happy to mock, whilst the broth they're wallowing in is rapidly coming to the same temperature.

Yes but it's much harder to find out about Australian politics because we all spend our time as a minority on an American web and our media just aren't doing (can't do?) a great job.

And also because journalists could go to prison for reporting on it.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#299

Post by thisrod »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #264
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American politics that they're happy to mock, whilst the broth they're wallowing in is rapidly coming to the same temperature.

Yes but it's much harder to find out about Australian politics because we all spend our time as a minority on an American web and our media just aren't doing (can't do?) a great job.

Which Australian media do you follow? I'd say that Crikey covers politics as well as the best newspapers do overseas, and most countries dream of having a TV show like 4 Corners.

The media is certainly getting smaller—everywhere, not just in Australia—and important things aren't getting reported. The answer to that is pretty boring, though: pay your subscription fees already.

Re: Google: Open Letter to Australians

#300

Post by nl »

alecthomas wrote: post #265
nl wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, this is a legitimate argument. But then why wouldn't the money go to fund the AP Press Pool in Canberra which shutdown recently because of lack of funding[1], or to the ABC or SBS or other public journalism? Instead it goes directly to the big publishers who cut journalists while increasing the salary of people like Andrew Bolt (who is so far removed from a journalist it is objectionable). [1] https://apnews.co…

Your response is unrelated to what I was disagreeing with. My underlying argument is that a strong free press must be maintained and that the reductionist argument that legitimate news sources and JoeRandomYouTuber should be treated identically is naive at best. > Instead it goes directly to the big publishers who cut journalists while increasing the salary of people like Andrew Bolt (who is so far removed from a jou…

> Your response is unrelated to what I was disagreeing with.

Well the flow of money is the source of pretty key in enabling a strong, free press.

> My underlying argument is that a strong free press must be maintained and that the reductionist argument that legitimate news sources and JoeRandomYouTuber should be treated identically is naive at best.

Sure.

So there should be some kind of non-discriminatory rules that allow new players to find a voice as well as maintaining credible news sources.

> Traditional news sources found their revenue declining and so chased whatever attracted consumers, including sensationalist cretins like Bolt. Google should accept responsibility for this.

Well I agree that the news ecosystem has changed, and I agree that a strong and free press has value.

> At least they're doing something.

See I don't see this as a good thing at all. I see this as making the problem worse by funding players who are some of the worse examples.

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