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Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

bbc.com

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Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#11

Post by King-Aaron »

jonny383 wrote: post #3
crowf wrote: post #2

to clarify for all who only read the headline "Going forward, the government has clarified [Facebook] will retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook so that [Facebook] won't automatically be subject to forced negotiation," so it looks like Facebook won in the game of chicken between them and the Australian government.

Despite the Australian Government's big scary words about not backing down last week. What an embarrassment.

> What an embarrassment.

I expect nothing less of this government.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#12

Post by throwaway69123 »

jonny383 wrote: post #3
crowf wrote: post #2

to clarify for all who only read the headline "Going forward, the government has clarified [Facebook] will retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook so that [Facebook] won't automatically be subject to forced negotiation," so it looks like Facebook won in the game of chicken between them and the Australian government.

Despite the Australian Government's big scary words about not backing down last week. What an embarrassment.

Old media saw their traffic stats crater, I think.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#13

Post by King-Aaron »

throwaway69123 wrote: post #12
jonny383 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite the Australian Government's big scary words about not backing down last week. What an embarrassment.

Old media saw their traffic stats crater, I think.

I would be interested to know what the net loss in click/ad revenue was over this period

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#14

Post by rblatz »

So the news sites all knew exactly how much of their traffic came from Facebook, and they should have known that people’s habits change slowly. What did they expect? They started this game of chicken and didn’t even have the will to wait over a week for user habits to change?

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#15

Post by gonehome »

crowf wrote: post #2

to clarify for all who only read the headline "Going forward, the government has clarified [Facebook] will retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook so that [Facebook] won't automatically be subject to forced negotiation," so it looks like Facebook won in the game of chicken between them and the Australian government.

FB was right on the merits here.

The news has no leverage, they want to shakedown FB for driving traffic to their own sites?

I'm glad FB told them to fuck off.

Meanwhile Google decided to pay Murdoch's extortion fee: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56101859

Google did the wrong thing.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#17

Post by PurpleFoxy »

langfo wrote: post #5

What I don't understand, please correct me if I'm wrong but don't the journalists, news agencies etc upload their own news content or links to news stories to the Facebook platform? Should they then get paid for that? Anyway, I'm into about day 6 of my feeble attempt to delete my Facebook account.

You are understanding correct. The Australian government wanted Facebook to let news companies post their news on Facebook and Facebook to pay them for doing so. Facebook then decided that they would rather not have the companies posting on fb. This caused a massive loss of profits for the news companies so it looks like the government has backed down.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#18

Post by aneemzic »

throwaway69123 wrote: post #12
jonny383 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite the Australian Government's big scary words about not backing down last week. What an embarrassment.

Old media saw their traffic stats crater, I think.

I think more importantly, the government realized how badly Facebook could hurt their influence in the Asia Pacific region. Without Australian news on Facebook, people in nearby developing countries would be getting their international news from from other countries (china).

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#19

Post by thaumasiotes »

aneemzic wrote: post #18
throwaway69123 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old media saw their traffic stats crater, I think.

I think more importantly, the government realized how badly Facebook could hurt their influence in the Asia Pacific region. Without Australian news on Facebook, people in nearby developing countries would be getting their international news from from other countries (china).

Do the people in nearby developing countries speak English? Or Chinese?

Which countries are we talking about?

It seems far more likely to me that people in nearby developing countries will get their international news from locals who follow international news for professional reasons, which would be impacted not at all by whether Australian news links can be shown on Facebook.

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