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An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia

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

#101

Post by mickael-kerjean »

pfundstein wrote: post #46
pawnednow wrote: post #4

Australian government and more specifically Rod sims, the chair of ACCC should get some counselling. Really good counselling. They clearly don't understand how publishing works and have a biased understanding of who is benefitting from this relationship. However, the entire Australian media has been nothing but puppets controlled by murdoch. The one true less biased source is ABC which has been muddied by constant fe…

> 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.

"Sydney Morning Herald" publishes articles written by people you'd think are journalists but are climate deniers working in the "Institute of public affairs" think tank [1][2]. Back when a tsunami hit the coast of Indonesia in 2018, the death toll was growing over the days and Sydney Morning Herald was giving the numbers from a few days back in a tinny article about halfhway through the newspaper with the frontpage news telling the story of a deer accident on a NSW road. Sydney Morning Herald is the worst mainstream newspaper I've seen in a non communist country.

[1] https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/budget-tax-cuts-prom.... - there's a long list of articles written by people working in the "institute of public affair" think tank both in smh and other outlets like theaustralian and more.

[2] https://ipa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IPA-Report-Why...

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

#102

Post by aussieguy1234 »

pawnednow wrote: post #4

Australian government and more specifically Rod sims, the chair of ACCC should get some counselling. Really good counselling. They clearly don't understand how publishing works and have a biased understanding of who is benefitting from this relationship. However, the entire Australian media has been nothing but puppets controlled by murdoch. The one true less biased source is ABC which has been muddied by constant fe…

Without Google News or news on FB, people will probably go for free news sources like abc, SBS, the guardian etc rather than the conservative media like The Australian and Daily Telegraph which by and large charges subscription fees for content.

Counter productive to what the conservative govt probably hoped to achieve politically

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

#103

Post by not2b »

waheoo wrote: post #34
valleyjo wrote: post #10

I don’t like FB as a company. However I have to admit, they are correct that news organizations benefit the most from this relationship. Why doesn’t google do the same thing? Don’t index news sites. Googles response seemed less effective than FB’s.

Google is a monopoly. Facebook is not. If google pushes their weight around they get targeted for anti competitive behavior.

They can avoid such issues by simply leaving the Australian market; a non-participant in a market clearly isn't monopolizing it. It just isn't that much money they would be giving up, and if the government tries to force them to operate at a loss it is no money at all.

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

#104

Post by johnnyYen »

boloust wrote: post #75
valleyjo wrote: post #10

I don’t like FB as a company. However I have to admit, they are correct that news organizations benefit the most from this relationship. Why doesn’t google do the same thing? Don’t index news sites. Googles response seemed less effective than FB’s.

The legislation explicitly prevents platforms from deindexing/downranking news sites that participate in the code in favour of other sites that do not. Which places Google in a more difficult position, because if a user searches for some news, Google is essentially forced to return results from a participating news organisation, or not show any relevant news results at all. While Facebook can just prevent users from…

I'd think Google could easily get around this by limiting the frequency with which their GoogleBot visits News Corp web sites to, say, once a month. Effectively makes being indexed worthless for News Corp.

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

#105

Post by xupybd »

traek wrote: post #35
xupybd wrote: post #8

Why are we getting hot by this in New Zealand? Last I checked we were autonomous from Australia and our only legal connections are treaties and the crown.

Where are you reading that this affects New Zealand?

Thank you. I see what I did. I read the job title and confused things.

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

#106

Post by ryan-allen »

I'm no fan of the Murdoch media and the damage it has done to Australia in terms of our internet infrastructure, but if Facebook are to block news media from their platform it will not affect me in the slightest, I don't trust _any_ of them to provide me the correct information.

I don't trust Facebook to serve me news, and I don't go there for news, and I don't think anyone should go to Facebook (or Google) for news.

I don't think Australians have a lot to lose from any big tech company blocking all news media on their platforms, and if they do so as a result of this legislation, and if it furthers the bleeding of these conglomerates, it sounds like a win/win situation.

There are probably negative follow on effects I'm not considering, though.

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

#107

Post by ryan-allen »

hnick wrote: post #36
pawnednow wrote: post #4

Australian government and more specifically Rod sims, the chair of ACCC should get some counselling. Really good counselling. They clearly don't understand how publishing works and have a biased understanding of who is benefitting from this relationship. However, the entire Australian media has been nothing but puppets controlled by murdoch. The one true less biased source is ABC which has been muddied by constant fe…

And the ABC/SBS will not benefit from payments if this goes through. Nor will independents. Only the largest for-profit companies will. The gap ever widens. I guess the level of science and technological literacy in our government here proves we are truly a representative democracy.

Would that mean that ABC/SBS news would feature on FB/Google and the large companies would not?

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

#108

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

Barrin92 wrote: post #100
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> normally platforms also have to pay for content ? This doesn't seem generically true to me. Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Instagram, Vine, FourSquare, Yelp, Pinterest, DeviantArt, LiveJournal, Xanga, Medium, etc. None of these platforms pay for user-generated content like link posting. When analyzing this issue you can't get away from considering what the platform is a platform for . If it's a…

>If it's a platform for UGC, the general rule is that the sharing of the content is a service provided to users at no cost. The vast majority of users receive no monetary payment from these platforms That is true (although Youtube actually does pay creators reasonably well), but I think you can make the case that they ought to , and that I think is what the central disagreement is about. Facebook/Google and so on bas…

That is true (although Youtube actually does pay creators reasonably well),

They pay a tiny, tiny fraction of creators that create most of the economic value. But by count the vast majority of uploaders do not get paid anything, because they produce nothing of economic value, or maybe even negative value. They also have no BATNA (no other site willing to pay them more for the worthless content they generate). I say this as an occasional uploader to YouTube of videos that get in the low thousands of views. My content likely has negative value to YouTube, but they host it because low friction is part of how they attract creators who someday grow big.

but I think you can make the case that they ought to . . .

You're welcome to.

Just imagine if ... users could easily collectively bargain ...

If they could, we'd live in a different world. I don't know what to take away from that. It's not the world we live in. Everyone has different standards for "ought," but this argument doesn't meet mine.

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

#109

Post by Barrin92 »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #98
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny this is happening to Google and Facebook, two companies who have forced their take-it-or-leave-it "negotiations" on over a billion users each. They're monopolies, and the amount of power and leverage they have and exploit is insane. Their EULAs are literally a non-negotiable "agree if you want to exist on the Internet". Do not try to make us feel bad for these companies that someone is also going to do it…

Have Facebook or Google compelled you to use their services? If not, then there is no parallel. It is not about "feeling bad" for companies or not. It's about whether the policy is sound.

I have certainly been compelled to use both, Facebook for vital student groups during my time in university (it's also in many developing countries the only digital place to run a business), and Google for similar reasons, including a work account. There's DDG now for search I suppose but Google used to be the only player in town.

Technically if I had to avoid Google I couldn't use Uber because it depends on Google maps, I couldn't use websites using Google cloud, etc..

In terms of function they certainly compel people to use them because they've been so integrated into infrastructure. You cannot avoid them.

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

#110

Post by [deleted] »

jakecopp wrote: post #49
pawnednow wrote: post #4

Australian government and more specifically Rod sims, the chair of ACCC should get some counselling. Really good counselling. They clearly don't understand how publishing works and have a biased understanding of who is benefitting from this relationship. However, the entire Australian media has been nothing but puppets controlled by murdoch. The one true less biased source is ABC which has been muddied by constant fe…

I encourage everyone to have a read of the actual draft legislation along with hearing Facebook's reaction to new regulations being imposed on them. The actual legislation sounds well thought out to me: https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-m... The FAQs: https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/DPB%20-%20Draft%20news%... See also the ACCC response to Google's open letter, which contained misinformat…

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