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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

#41

Post by anothernewdude »

loktarogar wrote: post #10
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.

> This is patently false, the only evidence of backlash has been from reports in mass media, we were all loving the new newsless Facebook. I only use facebook for extended family and friends of the family and noted a lot of people pissed off about not being able to share links.

Well that's on Murdoch and his shitty empire

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#42

Post by aneemzic »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #34
aneemzic wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Maybe you feel that way because you live in a country with significant independent media and don’t need to rely on international news outlets reporting on news that directly effects you.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#43

Post by f6v »

nickpp wrote: post #33

From all this, Microsoft stance was the worst: using the power of Big Government to attack competition. Shameful.

This is the reason people get frustrated, right here. Having expectations that a for-profit tech company doesn’t behave one. Why wouldn’t they use everything at their disposal to slam the competitors?

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#44

Post by gorgoiler »

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…

If there’s market value for news then news sellers should stop giving it away for free and starting charging a price.

If press barons instead want to leverage free news to gain power and influence then who cares if the cost of doing so in 2021 is much higher than in 1981?

So what if the emergence of Google et al indirectly pushed up the price of tabloid influence over democracy?

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#45

Post by johnnyYen »

berndi wrote: post #36

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 pr…

"Facebook didn't bat an eye before blocking the pages of food banks and emergency service providers..."

No, FB obeyed the law. The legislation of what constitutes a "news organisation" is opaque. The legislation said pay for links or don't show them. FB complied with the law and elected not to show them. I cannot see the problem here - FB obeyed the law.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#46

Post by gorgoiler »

berndi wrote: post #36

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 pr…

Big News used to be the strong men.

IT’S THE SUN WOT WON IT

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It

We are merely spectators watching the giants fight it out, ironically, by following news media’s coverage of events.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#47

Post by jsnell »

berndi wrote: post #36

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 pr…

I just don't get that viewpoint at all. Removing all news content was one of the two possible outcomes of that law. And the drafters of that law very intentionally made the definition of news content as vague and broad as possible, to maximize the damage and thus minimize the odds of Facebook actually doing it.

If you're outraged that "Facebook did this in the middle of a pandemic", why not be at least as outraged at the government for trying to pass such a law "in the middle of a pandemic"?

Australia: We're going to draft a law that requires Facebook to do X or Y.

Facebook: If those are the options. we're going to do Y.

Australia: You're bluffing, you'd never dare to do Y. We're going to pass that law soon, and we're sure you'll do X instead.

Facebook: Ok, we'll start doing Y right now.

Australia: Outrageous! How dare you try to strongarm a democracy by doing Y.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#48

Post by sjwright »

franklampard wrote: post #27
Clewza313 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did Google blink when FB didn't then?

Google actively indexes the news sites and offer present them in its search results. But on Facebook the news publishers voluntarily share their stories. That’s the biggest difference in my opinion.

I don't agree. Explicitly permitting Googlebot to continually scour your site for decades—including letting it through the paywalls—also constitutes voluntary sharing of stories.

The distinction is really just a technicality of whether the ongoing relationship is push or pull.

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#49

Post by yarcob »

gorgoiler wrote: post #44
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…

If there’s market value for news then news sellers should stop giving it away for free and starting charging a price. If press barons instead want to leverage free news to gain power and influence then who cares if the cost of doing so in 2021 is much higher than in 1981? So what if the emergence of Google et al indirectly pushed up the price of tabloid influence over democracy?

> news sellers should stop giving it away for free and starting charging a price

But that's exactly what they are trying to do? The news stories obviously have a value for Facebook, and the publishers are trying to get them to pay for it.

Radio stations also pay royalties to play music, why shouldn't websites have to pay royalties for content they show in their feeds?

Re: Facebook to restore news pages in Australia

#50

Post by clouddrover »

gonehome wrote: post #15
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.

> I'm glad FB told them to fuck off.

Facebook is negotiating deals with media companies. The Australian government got what they wanted.

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