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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

#31

Post by aneemzic »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #19
aneemzic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Do the people in nearby developing countries speak English?

In most pacific island, yes. In places like East Timor English it's not uncommon at all, news is also often shared via relatives who live abroad. Do you really think china doesn't have multiple news outlets written in English to promote their power abroad, just look at the South China morning Post.

>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 reason

I'm confused why you would think that? A lot of these countries have specific phone plans which exclude Facebook data and they like a large amount of people get their news on social media.

Here's a few articles on the very subject [0][1]

[0]https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-19/pacific-media-warns-f...

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/19/facebooks-aust...

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#32

Post by gorgoiler »

Australian authorities will now introduce further amendments, including a two-month mediation period before government-enforced arbitration kicks in.

Mediation which will now include empirical data from the blackout.

Going dark has meant a bad news cycle for FB but in the long run they now have data to prove it’s FB driving NewsCorp’s revenue and not the other way around.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#34

Post by thaumasiotes »

aneemzic wrote: post #31
thaumasiotes wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Do the people in nearby developing countries speak English? In most pacific island, yes. In places like East Timor English it's not uncommon at all, news is also often shared via relatives who live abroad. Do you really think china doesn't have multiple news outlets written in English to promote their power abroad, just look at the South China morning Post. >It seems far more likely to me that people in nearby devel…

>> 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

> I'm confused why you would think that?

Simple; it's true everywhere. Most people do not care about international news; they do not ever seek it out.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#35

Post by yarcob »

A lot of people are using Facebook as their newsfeed, so I think it's not quite honest to claim that Facebook is not gaining anything from sharing news stories.

Facebook would be a lot less compelling without news.

People used to browse headlines on newspaper sites, then Facebook came and aggregated all the headlines, and "stole" all the visitors of the news sites.

Reporting on stories is a lot of effort (especially local stories where you can't just copy paste some press release), and Facebook wants to put the headlines on their website for free. Publishers should be happy about the exposure!

I understand that publishers are pissed. They are doing the work, but Facebook makes money from the content, and all they get in exchange is a small percentage of people who view a post actually click through to read the full story.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#36

Post by berndi »

So we're now at a point where Big Tech can overtly strong-arm a nation into changing legislation proposed by their democratically elected government.

Facebook didn't bat an eye before blocking the pages of food banks and emergency service providers in the middle of a pandemic for an entire county, all in service of avoiding a drop in their advertising revenue [1]. That should tell you a lot.

You might not like the proposed laws but Facebook's reckless conduct is indefensible.

If you compare this to Facebook's history in Myanmar, you will find that they have no issue with subsidising the spread of their platform while it is being used to incite a literal genocide [2]. But they draw the line and take swift action when their profits are endangered.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-australia-news-ban-... [2] https://www.wired.com/story/how-facebooks-rise-fueled-chaos-...

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#37

Post by jeeeb »

probably_wrong wrote: post #20

The article is light on details. Do we have an idea of what the text of the amended law will say? I imagine Australians could end up with a law that says "exactly the same as before, except for Facebook" which would be very bad for everyone else.

So far it seems like only press statements have been released.

ABC is reporting some small tweaks to the law (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-23/facebook-reverses-new...)

1. Introduction of a good faith mediation period prior to compulsory arbitration 2. Introduction of a clause requiring the treasurer to consider existing deals before applying the code.

Basically it seems like FB have agreed to pay media companies but with a stronger hand in negotiations.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#38

Post by efwfwef »

TheSmiddy wrote: post #8

"The tech giant drew a wide backlash from Australian users." This is patently false, the only evidence of backlash has been from reports in mass media, we were all loving the new newsless Facebook. On this particular issue Facebook is clearly in the right, it is straight up insane to expect them to pay for links to news that users choose to share.

The only thing that annoys me is that some of the articles in Facebook news are behind a paywall

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#39

Post by efwfwef »

yarcob wrote: post #35

A lot of people are using Facebook as their newsfeed, so I think it's not quite honest to claim that Facebook is not gaining anything from sharing news stories. Facebook would be a lot less compelling without news. People used to browse headlines on newspaper sites, then Facebook came and aggregated all the headlines, and "stole" all the visitors of the news sites. Reporting on stories is a lot of effort (especially…

> Facebook would be a lot less compelling without news.

Yet everyone complains here (me included) that Facebook should go back to its roots, and offer news about your friends only

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#40

Post by yarcob »

efwfwef wrote: post #39
yarcob wrote: post #35

A lot of people are using Facebook as their newsfeed, so I think it's not quite honest to claim that Facebook is not gaining anything from sharing news stories. Facebook would be a lot less compelling without news. People used to browse headlines on newspaper sites, then Facebook came and aggregated all the headlines, and "stole" all the visitors of the news sites. Reporting on stories is a lot of effort (especially…

> Facebook would be a lot less compelling without news. Yet everyone complains here (me included) that Facebook should go back to its roots, and offer news about your friends only

Yes, but the people complaining here are not really Facebooks core audience anymore.

Facebook has basically become a news sharing platform, because that's how they keep people "engaged".

Most people just don't have enough relatives that they can browse baby photos all day. But there's an endless stream of news headlines...

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