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

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

#131

Post by waheoo » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 4:06 AM UTC

waheoo wrote: post #30

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…

ABC are compromised, they only ever hard ball interview the opposition, which is completely fucking useless. (They're not in power) Just look at any liberal interview vs any Labor interview. Labor gets questions, liberal gets pleasentaries.

Don't know why being downvoted. This is as if fox news was govt funded.

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

#132

Post by tempestn » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

themacguffinman wrote: post #86

tempestn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 off…

The draft law explicitly prevents Facebook from blocking only news outlets that attempted to negotiate [1]: > The draft code would prohibit digital platforms discriminating against the news content of news media businesses on the basis of their participation in the code. This is crucial. A negotiation that you cannot genuinely back out from is not a negotiation at all, it is effectively extortion. If Facebook cannot…

Ah, there you go; thanks for pointing that out.

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

#133

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 4:49 AM UTC

chrismsimpson wrote: post #88

tempestn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This isn't even true when you consider news articles that are cached by Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).

The publisher controls whether AMP is used. If they don't want to use it they can stop publishing it.

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

#134

Post by brokenmachine » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 4:55 AM UTC

dicomdan wrote: post #42

umvi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't the Australian government just make another law making it illegal for Facebook to block sharing of news on Facebook. If you throw enough laws at something, surely you'll get the desired outcome eventually (wealth redistribution from Facebook => struggling newspapers)?

It's not unlikely that Facebook will pull out of Australia for such follow up law, and US will retaliate against Australia economically for driving Facebook out.

Would the US really care about Facebook's concerns? Why?

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

#135

Post by hnzix » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 5:02 AM UTC

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #102

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

This could actually de-weaponize FB. I quit FB when it degenerated into people arguing over news articles. Maybe now they’ll be less angry and discuss broader topics.

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

#136

Post by ryan-allen » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 5:05 AM UTC

hnick wrote: post #111

ryan-allen wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't think that would be legal. "Digital platforms must participate in the code if the Treasurer makes a determination specifying that the code would apply to them. The Government has announced that the code would initially apply only to Facebook and Google." This means they can't pick and choose. They are either a news platform or not. That's why FB is warning us they'd get out of the news game entirely. https://…

Thanks for the info, given how Facebook and Google were used for spreading propaganda by various state actors in the recent past, if people were unable to get their news through these platforms, maybe that would be a good thing?

I read this book [0] recently, and I was astounded by how widespread it is around the world. The Duerte chapters are an eye opener.

[0] https://www.amazon.com.au/This-Not-Propaganda-Adventures-Aga...

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

#137

Post by brokenmachine » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 5:24 AM UTC

ryan-allen wrote: post #106

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 agree with your assessment.

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

#138

Post by prawn » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 5:32 AM UTC

hnzix wrote: post #135

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This could actually de-weaponize FB. I quit FB when it degenerated into people arguing over news articles. Maybe now they’ll be less angry and discuss broader topics.

IMO, they won't. FB will remain weaponised, but the news sources willing to play ball (often more extreme sources) will hold sway and increase influence.

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

#139

Post by brokenmachine » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 5:32 AM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #127

What I find funny about this reaction is that most Australians are actually either quite blase about this situation, or actually are quietly enjoying the fact that massive multinationals who will do anything to avoid paying taxes in Australia have finally discovered that their power is quite limited in Australia. Most Australians have seen what Facebook was up to during the 2016 election. They have seen the rise of T…

I'm Australian and I see this law as confirmation of dementia in the government. This is all kinds of unrealistic.

Having to notify Murdoch of any changes to search algorithm 28 days in advance? I wonder if that is even possible - it's probably a magic ML algorithm that they tweak here and there.

I can't imagine that google/facebook would continue linking to news under these conditions. The small return is not worth the cost.

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

#140

Post by brokenmachine » Tue, Sep 01, 2020, 5:35 AM UTC

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.

Do you feel that what the government wants is in your best interest?

I'm Australian and I don't.