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Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

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141–150 of 503 posts

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#141
post #64
post #36

Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like this seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically targeting Google and Meta. Sometimes taking the simple view is correct: It's a bad thing to prevent sites from linking to one another. It's a bad thing to interfere with the ability to access information on the Internet for reasons of nationalist politics.

> Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like this seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically targeting Google and Meta. It's not just a matter of the targeted companies being Google and Meta, even though these two especially deserve it. It's the simple realization that good journalism requires good money, and that the current balance between news organizations and internet brokers isn't u…

>> While Canada's bill may not be well-tuned, it is a welcome first attempt.

I normally agree with release early, collect data and iterate. I'm not sure the law, with a bill of this impact, dependent on a bunch of politicians with obvious bias, who just went on summer vacation for 3 months, falls into this category.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#142
post #5

Brazil is currently considering a similar law that would require social networks to compensate content creators for each republication [1]. However, unlike the situation in Canada, the Brazilian lawmakers have taken into account this scenario. The law mandates that social networks cannot cease publishing the content and must negotiate compensation in "fair terms." Personally, I find this approach to be quite perplexi…

I demand royalties for my shit posts!

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#143
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traffic is generated by the content which is not free (most of the time) to produce. Google without content is what except an empty library? I'm not sure why people here are defending GOOG so much.

Speaking for myself, on the merits, Google's position makes more sense. On an emotional level, I dislike media news companies companies more than I dislike Google...which is a lot.

We share a similar dislike for media news companies.. and Google. Like i said, i find the media companies boring and they abdicated a while ago being the "fourth" power. I might also not understand all the consequences of the bill as well.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#144
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the problem. News outlets can now negotiate individually with Google if they still want the free traffic. Google will be paying $0 to them. Other outlets who don't want the free traffic from Google can choose to not receive it, as they can right now via robots.txt.

Traffic is generated by the content which is not free (most of the time) to produce. Google without content is what except an empty library? I'm not sure why people here are defending GOOG so much.

Google is stopping to show results for news outlets, so everything is fine, right? What else do you criticize them for?

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they just showed the title and the link - like they used to - they it would drive revenue. But because they show a synopsis of the news, people very often don't click the link.

This doesn't happen automatically, it's something websites have to set up: https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-for-websites/c...

I'm skeptical that such explicit summaries are the only thing social networks display. Even if that is currently the case, it would be relatively trivial for a company the size of Meta to generate and show their own summary.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#146
post #64
post #36

Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like this seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically targeting Google and Meta. Sometimes taking the simple view is correct: It's a bad thing to prevent sites from linking to one another. It's a bad thing to interfere with the ability to access information on the Internet for reasons of nationalist politics.

> Many people who would otherwise be appalled at laws like this seem to want to rationalize this because its specifically targeting Google and Meta. It's not just a matter of the targeted companies being Google and Meta, even though these two especially deserve it. It's the simple realization that good journalism requires good money, and that the current balance between news organizations and internet brokers isn't u…

Just tax big companies more liberally, in general and everywhere. No need to target so specifically, e.g. there is so much value in all the data that citizens all around the world are providing, almost for free… maintenance costs for supporting usage are low in comparison, check yearly investor reports for profits.

Then we’d not only have enough financial resources to subsidize a free and healthy press but also for other worthy endeavours like better health care, open source software, science, etc.

All without hampering with basic pillars of the web.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#147
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The open web has deteriorated to such an extent that either information is paywalled or free but has commercial motivations behind it (affiliate links, sponsorships). It turns out there's little free, non-commercial, high quality content on the web.

> turns out there's little free, non-commercial, high quality content on the web. Well, sure. Who pays for it?

No one. That's why I commented to make the point that Google should not refuse to crawl commercial content.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#148
post #133

The eff had an interesting article[1] about this issue (and others) as well as some alternative ways solve the issue, not that I agree with all of them. Ultimately, this is the wrong approach. The internet should be "open," and people or companies should be free to link to whatever they want without penalty. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

While I agree with them, it's important to note that the EFF is very pro-big tech and is largely funded by them.

People are so often surprised when the money in an industry funds an industry group. It's especially egregious in the defense industry when people turn it into conspiracy theories saying like "this think tank is a puppet because they got money from the people with money."

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#149
Can someone ELI5 the argument for the bill?

My impression is it's something like "news websites provide content that creates engagement which drives ad revenue, and the news websites want a piece of that revenue."

Is my understanding correct? Also, I can see how it applies for Facebook, how does it apply to Google?

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#150
post #83
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The open web has deteriorated to such an extent that either information is paywalled or free but has commercial motivations behind it (affiliate links, sponsorships). It turns out there's little free, non-commercial, high quality content on the web.

True. There is some great content (blogs, OS software, books, p2p networks, public libraries, academia, government), but by and large that wasn't created with monetary incentives. Could there be a way to sustainably make enough money from visitors without making it all suck?

I think there really needs to be a micro-transaction mechanism on the web, but unfortunately it was needed ten years ago and there still isn't one.
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