151–160 of 330 posts
I am for any law or policy that hurts Google. And I really don’t care whether it’s fair or unfair. I’m not sure any two companies have caused more worldwide carnage, in the history of the world, than FB and Google.
If it gave consumers a better outcome, then maybe, but it won't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you consider the wider legal context, this also makes sense* . This is because Facebook requires page owners to assume all liability for comments. This has resulted in publishers losing defamation cases based on third-party comments made on their posts [1]. * (regardless of whether you feel, as I do, that the proposed legislation is a politically-motivated protection racket for a favoured media mogul) [1] https:…
1. That case isn't finished with appeals and there are already multiple laws in the pipeline to override it. 2. Facebook didn't require publishers to be liable. The court did.
2. Thanks - poor wording on my part. I meant to communicate that Facebook avoids liability in their terms, and of course the court determined the actual liability falls on publishers posting content.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe news isn't sustainable in the long run anyway. Independent journalists (who CAN survive on 50k-150k in ad revenue) are the future.
How? They'll be crushed like bugs by the first lawsuit that comes along. The only way they'd survive is by producing fawning, uncritical reports, like almost every interview done with movie stars.
I feel like this time it's different , google (and big tech it represents) will get little sympathy on reddit and other watering holes. Even if the law seems restricting, it's Google who broke the social contract of the internet and turned from a benevolent rent-seeker to a feudal lord. (E.g. check this: https://www.google.com/search?q=money+for+nothing , google just pastes the lyrics and there is NO link to read the…
Google's lyrics are licensed from Musixmatch. They are not scraping them from websites who as always are completely free to exempt themselves from searches via the sitemap.xml file.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's about funding journalism. What's Mike Cannon-Brooke's solution for funding journalism?
Could do like the UK does with the BBC and fund it via ordinary taxes. It seems like a relatively simple solution.
> A healthy news media sector is essential to a well-functioning democracy. This feels like a slap in the face. Whoever wrote this would be fully aware that our media sector is anything but healthy, and that our “democracy” flatlined years ago. I can only imagine that this was written by a committee that was sinking beers and laughing their asses off as they watched this post go live.
Why are you air-quoting Australian democracy? Aussies have one of the healthiest democracies in the world--9th out of 167 ranked countries according to the EUI annual 'Democracy Index'.[0] Is it posh to pretend to be misrepresented and/or oppressed nowadays? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#Democracy_Inde...
If not, it may interest you to know that we once had a carbon tax. It wasn’t stalled in the house or amended into nonexistence like a lot of politically charged law, but was repealed. The influence that the coal industry (leveraged by NewsCorp) has in this country is insane.
It may also interest you to know that Kevin Rudd, a previous prime minister, was (is) the subject of a relentless smear campaign on the part of NewsCorp. He was removed from power not by an election, but via a leadership spill brought on by the pressure exerted by Murdoch.
It may also interest you to investigate how our second wave of COVID-19 is being reported in Australian media. The second wave began in Federally funded and operated aged care facilities; however has been branded entirely as the “Melbourne wave”, pinning the blame on the Labour Party (the opposition to the party controlling the federal govt) and its state leader.
We are misrepresented. The Democracy Index is published by The Economist. They may not be owned by NewsCorp, but you can be damn sure they feel their gaze.
I'm very curious how this law wouldn't violate various free trade deals Australia has struck. Surely a tax that explicitly names only foreign companies is the opposite of free trade? Sure, China has driven a truck through the whole concept of the WTO over decades and so I doubt anything will happen. Free trade deals are very much toothless, on the assumption that they are supposed to make sense on their own terms so…
If, say, a country requires mining companies to implement certain minimum safety standards, that's totally acceptable from a free trade perspective if it applies to all companies, even if almost all mines are operated by international conglomerates. Such a law might make it more difficult for foreign companies to keep operating, but without providing an advantage for domestic companies who have to abide by the same regulations.
I also disagree that China has driven a truck through the WTO, since it was China that had to agree to various concessions as part of WTO accession. https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/iclr/vol27/iss2/6/ When people complain about hurdles for foreign companies in China, their information tends to be either outdated (e.g. joint venture requirements) or the same hurdles apply to Chinese companies (e.g. need to censor your website if you have one).
I'm Australian, and I created an account just to comment on this issue. Imagine Google News or the Facebook news feed were normal news websites. If you count their traffic as the amount of times people went to those websites just to read news, their raw traffic would dwarf any other news website in Australia by an order of magnitude. Journalistic websites have editorial standards, and at least some relationship and c…
For Google at least they have the option to opt-out. They can add a robots.txt file to prevent indexing. It isn't clear to me why special legislation is required to give the media companies bargaining power. They already have the power to say no if they don't think the arrangement is fair. (For facebook it is less clear, because you can't really force people to stop sharing your links)
This is a very disappointing response from the ACCC. It seems to be extremely misleading in its own right. > Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services Google did not state this. The ACCC - the supposed detached "fair" regulator, in charge of creating this code, just made something up to suit their own ends. > Google will not be required to share any additional user data with A…
>Google did not state this. The ACCC - the supposed detached "fair" regulator, in charge of creating this code, just made something up to suit their own ends. From Google's open letter: `A proposed law, the News Media Bargaining Code, would force us to provide you with a dramatically worse Google Search and YouTube, could lead to your data being handed over to big news businesses, and would put the free services you…
It’s a positive adjective meant to fluff up/activate the positive association of using google when people read it.
Saying “the top quality services” “world class services” would come across as tone deaf.
Free here is not meant to be added as a veiled reference to negotiating items.
They really should stop saying "Australian news media" when they are referring to commercial entities only. The fact that the public ABC and SBS media are not allowed to be compensated says everything about the intent and motivation of this policy.