An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia • Hacker News Board

Re: An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia

#61

Post by totetsu » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:28 AM UTC

stephen_g wrote: post #32

rhema wrote: post #5

This may not kill the large newspapers, but surely it will destroy the local newspapers. When does a tech blog become news? Can you even share anything on the internet through Facebook?

News Corp (who lobbied to get this bill created) already did a lot of that this year [1] - over the last few decades, they had bought up most of the newspapers in regional Australia, and then ended up deciding they were unviable and shuttered 125 of them in May this year. They're keeping some kind of digital version but let go basically all the local reporters, photographers, etc. and closed all the local offices, an…

New Zealand has seen a proliferation of local news apps, employing local journalists, payed for by advertisements from local business, come to fill this gap https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2...

Re: An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia

#62

Post by paxys » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:31 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #15

valleyjo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook can remove news and it will minimally effect engagement. I wonder what happens to the publishers when they lose 2.3BN clicks.

Which would indirectly prove the point of the legislation right? That Facebook has immense market power in the social media / ad space with no competitor in sight, which would mean expanding bargaining power for news orgs is legitimate. Because switching to a competitor would actually be the answer to your question in a functioning market.

There are lots of arguments for regulation, but that's not really what this law does. It is pure rent seeking.

Re: An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia

#63

Post by harry8 » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:32 AM UTC

2 Points: Underscoring that facebook is not now, nor was it ever a good source of news is a very good thing. Don't get your news from facebook. Don't get it via facebook. Anything on facebook that isn't actually personal is tainted and horrible to be treated with extreme suspicion. Facebook have earned that reputation and deserve it.

People going elsewhere on the internet than facebook to get news will reduce facebook engagment, use and get people in the habit of not going to facebook first.

Bring it on. Facebook are horrific. The less they do the better. Especially given they apparently won't do anything about being used for violent organisation.

About the only organisation guaranteed to be more wrong than the Australian Government about literally everyting is Facebook.

[1] https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/8/28/21406022/facebook-banne...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebo...

Re: An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia

#64

Post by pfundstein » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:32 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #52

pfundstein wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the entire Australian media has been nothing but puppets controlled by murdoch You're going a bit heavy on hyperbole there. There's a decent amount of non-murdoch news; ABC, SBS, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, The Conversation, etc.

Most of them are specifically excluded from this legislation.

Yeah, I know. I'm not trying to defend it or "News" Corp.

Re: An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia

#65

Post by goodside » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:33 AM UTC

hcnews wrote: post #21

Why does the title say "An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia" rather than "Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia"? For me (2) is much more readable.

“An update about...” implies the reader is unlikely to care unless already following the story. If they wanted to reach normal users there would be A/B-tested headlines, pastel illustrations, and bolded reassurances that your Facebook isn’t going away.

Re: An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia

#66

Post by catmanjan » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:35 AM UTC

darkwizard42 wrote: post #20

catmanjan wrote: post #11

As an Australian I have no doubt the policy is misguided, but the fact that these American companies are being so loud about it makes me wonder if the government is actually on the right track. In general I would say whatever corporations want is not in my best interest, so whatever they don't want, might be.

That feels like a pretty bad take on how to review changes. You might get better mileage by looking at the context each time. In this case its pretty clear that the Australian goverment is acting on behalf of specific vested news companies and NOT for the consumer... It seems dangerous to have this kind of government-on-the-right-track reaction when the corporation cheering it on is in the business of fossil fuels, f…

Fair enough, I simply don't trust any corporation to act in my interest - if there was a trusted third party lobbying for FB/Google's position I may have another look

Of course I would like to see the government go further and upset News Corp as well, but upsetting these two seems like a good first step

Re: An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia

#67

Post by tempestn » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:35 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #9

I haven't followed this debate too closely but this seems pretty disingenuous. >The ACCC presumes that Facebook benefits most in its relationship with publishers, when in fact the reverse is true. News represents a fraction of what people see in their News Feed and is not a significant source of revenue for us News may not directly contribute much ad revenue but it surely is a huge driver of engagement on the website…

It says they must negotiate, and crucially, that if they can't come to an agreement they must enter binding arbitration. Currently publishers can go to Facebook and say, "Pay us for linking to our pages." And Facebook can say, "No, we don't derive benefit from links to your pages; we're not paying you for them." Under this law, the publisher could then force FB into binding arbitration where, presumably, their $0 offer wouldn't be accepted.

I suppose in theory FB could only block those news outlets that attempted to negotiate, but somehow I expect the government would take a dim view of that.

Re: An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia

#68

Post by catmanjan » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:36 AM UTC

stephen_g wrote: post #28

catmanjan wrote: post #11

As an Australian I have no doubt the policy is misguided, but the fact that these American companies are being so loud about it makes me wonder if the government is actually on the right track. In general I would say whatever corporations want is not in my best interest, so whatever they don't want, might be.

When the main driving force is lobbying from an American multinational that pays no tax in Australia but controls 70% of our news (News Corp), and ABC, SBS and small independent news sources are specifically excluded... No, they're not on the right track. I mean, that's even before you consider that there isn't really any logical consistency to the claims that Google and Facebook are making huge profits directly from…

Were it not for the parens, your first paragraph could have been talking about any of the players

Why is it a false assumption? The users are the product, and the user want news

Re: An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia

#69

Post by tempestn » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:36 AM UTC

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #51

chrismsimpson wrote: post #33

I am no fan of this right wing government, which is letting Fake News Corp write it’s media policy, but Facebook does not have an inherent right to other people’s content. Rather than redistributing ad dollars away from big tech, this is likely to force people consuming news to go directly to the source. Either that or it will further dumb down our discourse (though Fake News Corp is doing a pretty good job of that a…

Facebook is not taking anyones content. News companies willingly submit their content to facebook and now demand that facebook should pay for the stuff they submitted. So facebook is taking the logical step by stopping them from submitting the content. I can't walk up to someone and hand them the keys to my car and then demand that they now owe me the value of the car.

They're not even submitting their content; they're submitting links to their content. Readers still need to go to the publishers' pages to read the articles.

Re: An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia

#70

Post by smcleod » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 1:36 AM UTC

Somewhat related, from Daring Fireball's clipping of https://themargins.substack.com/p/facebook-the-pr-firm:

> So, in that way, I read Facebook less as a tech company, but instead a communications one. Not a telecom communications, but more like a PR / marketing consultancy. There’s nothing original about Facebook. It’s a company that hires people to build others’ ideas, and, more often than not, it does that better and faster than them too. And when it can’t do that, it just buys them outright. There is a lot of building, but the ideas are outsourced. But what Facebook is really good at is actually doing all this while fighting what seems to be a never-ending, at least since 2016 or so, PR battle while not giving an inch.

> With all the negative press around, you might think they are not doing a good job at avoiding criticism, but consider the alternative that they’ve been able to weather all this because they’ve been able to deflect the criticism and avoid scrutiny and accountability. I know this all sounds pretty unhinged right now, but, stay with me. This is a company who hires conservative politicians to its highest ranks in multiple countries, while maintaining a veneer of political neutrality. The same company pretends its not the arbiter of truth while employing tens of thousands of people to do exactly that. Ask yourselves: What has changed at Facebook?