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Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

nationalpost.com

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Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#71

Post by doublebind »

wvenable wrote: post #59
halifaxbeard wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the core issue is people aren’t clicking through to read the article, but they’re commenting on Facebook based on the headline. Facebook gets ad views and user-generated content/comments, and the organization doing the reporting sees nothing of the economic value generated in this scenario. (Hacker News is specialized in audience and news orgs generally aren’t posting all their stories here) CBC t…

My issue with this, is this a problem that needs to be solved? Do we need to guarantee monetization of every human interaction? If my friend and I go a cafe, see a newspaper headline, and have a discussion about that headline without ever opening that newspaper should the cafe have to pay for that discussion? Why should any media adjacent interaction anywhere happen without payment? If the cafe is playing music, they…

I believe the problem is that the situation you describe occurs on a much bigger scale. It’s no longer you and your friend in the cafe; it’s millions of people looking at the headline on the screen.

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#72

Post by arrosenberg »

wvenable wrote: post #59
halifaxbeard wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the core issue is people aren’t clicking through to read the article, but they’re commenting on Facebook based on the headline. Facebook gets ad views and user-generated content/comments, and the organization doing the reporting sees nothing of the economic value generated in this scenario. (Hacker News is specialized in audience and news orgs generally aren’t posting all their stories here) CBC t…

My issue with this, is this a problem that needs to be solved? Do we need to guarantee monetization of every human interaction? If my friend and I go a cafe, see a newspaper headline, and have a discussion about that headline without ever opening that newspaper should the cafe have to pay for that discussion? Why should any media adjacent interaction anywhere happen without payment? If the cafe is playing music, they…

In your example the cafe isn't monetizing the fact that you view the headline and comment, which inherently increases the advertising value of the cafe (i.e. more people won't come to the cafe because of the headlines and their need to comment on it) and which captures significantly more value than everyone else involved. You just read the headline, a few people buy the paper and everyone is equitable and happy.

If Meta wants to pay 100% tax on their ad revenues to fund journalism, all they have to do is say so.

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#73

Post by dmix »

halifaxbeard wrote: post #56
grf27 wrote: post #45

Isn't the issue that Google/Facebook sell ads and make money from linking to news sources? And those news sources have their costs but don't see any income? I think about this often when I read a story on some small-town newspaper, and know that the newspaper is making nothing off of me and millions of others reading their story. Didn't Australia implement a similar law and get Google/Facebook to pay something? There…

My understanding of the core issue is people aren’t clicking through to read the article, but they’re commenting on Facebook based on the headline. Facebook gets ad views and user-generated content/comments, and the organization doing the reporting sees nothing of the economic value generated in this scenario. (Hacker News is specialized in audience and news orgs generally aren’t posting all their stories here) CBC t…

Oh god, comment threads on news sites are some of the worst things on the internet. Never well designed, properly threaded, each requires a different login, etc.

If that's the business they want to be in then they (and every other news site) completely sucks at it and there's a reason people want to talk on FB/Twitter instead beyond network effects.

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#74

Post by ipaddr »

babypuncher wrote: post #60
foogazi wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And those news sources have their costs but don't see any income? Don’t those news sources have ads too ? How are they making income from local views?

Because very few people click through to the article, they just read the headline, summary, and comments on Facebook. Facebook is capturing most of the economic value generated by these articles.

Reminds me of hackernews. I'm doing it now (commenting) without visiting the site because I'm aware of the story.

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#75

Post by dmix »

regimeld wrote: post #11

As a Canadian, I find the current government's policy on the internet to be very 1990's. I fully support Google's and Meta's decision to remove Canadian news from their platforms. This is a complete "own-goal" by the government.

Probably the biggest self-own in recent memory.

I feel bad about the journos/web teams who have to suffer as a consequence of the current gov and the rich Canadian media aristocracy who pushed this through. But I can't say it's going to immediately impact my life. I'm not a particular fan of any of the Canadian media sites besides maybe the hyper local ones like CP24. Nor would I touch the Canadian subreddits with a ten foot pole to go discuss them (some of the worst parts of Reddit).

Canadians are already obsessed with American news/politics anyway. They will just be fed slightly more of that than before on social media.

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#76

Post by VancouverMan »

koboll wrote: post #61

"The party spent nearly $15,000 on over 1,000 ads in the past month." Oh no! Fifteen thousand dollars?! I'm sure Facebook is shaking and crying and will reverse their decision immediately.

I think you should re-read the article.

What you quoted seems to refer to what the Liberal Party of Canada itself was spending, and the article makes it sound like they plan to continue buying ads going forward.

Farther down in the article, it also mentions recent spending by the federal government (rather than just the Liberal Party itself), and that amount is significantly larger.

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#77

Post by grf27 »

wvenable wrote: post #59
halifaxbeard wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the core issue is people aren’t clicking through to read the article, but they’re commenting on Facebook based on the headline. Facebook gets ad views and user-generated content/comments, and the organization doing the reporting sees nothing of the economic value generated in this scenario. (Hacker News is specialized in audience and news orgs generally aren’t posting all their stories here) CBC t…

My issue with this, is this a problem that needs to be solved? Do we need to guarantee monetization of every human interaction? If my friend and I go a cafe, see a newspaper headline, and have a discussion about that headline without ever opening that newspaper should the cafe have to pay for that discussion? Why should any media adjacent interaction anywhere happen without payment? If the cafe is playing music, they…

No, but if you're a government seeing your media industry shrinking because they can't make a profit to sustain themselves, meanwhile others are profiting off their work, then you want to try something, and I guess this is their attempt.

One of the other solutions proposed was taxes on media aggregators. This is similar to the taxes on entertainment aggregators currently in place that pay into a fund that supports domestic entertainers. These approaches have lots of complications.

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#78

Post by mcpackieh »

halifaxbeard wrote: post #56
grf27 wrote: post #45

Isn't the issue that Google/Facebook sell ads and make money from linking to news sources? And those news sources have their costs but don't see any income? I think about this often when I read a story on some small-town newspaper, and know that the newspaper is making nothing off of me and millions of others reading their story. Didn't Australia implement a similar law and get Google/Facebook to pay something? There…

My understanding of the core issue is people aren’t clicking through to read the article, but they’re commenting on Facebook based on the headline. Facebook gets ad views and user-generated content/comments, and the organization doing the reporting sees nothing of the economic value generated in this scenario. (Hacker News is specialized in audience and news orgs generally aren’t posting all their stories here) CBC t…

> My understanding of the core issue is people aren’t clicking through to read the article, but they’re commenting on Facebook based on the headline.

If this is the meat of the matter, then how does asking Facebook to pay for links/headlines address the problem? Whether or not facebook pays for linking to news stories, the discussion on facebook remains vapid and the public isn't properly informed.

Unless the idea was to make Facebook remove the links/headlines and drive traffic back to the news websites, which is what happened.. so why are they complaining now that it has played out that way?

Re: Ottawa pulls advertising, escalating showdown with Facebook and Instagram

#79

Post by bawolff »

jtr1 wrote: post #23
bawolff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you analyze news as something more like “a right to information” - “integral to the function of democracy”, I don't get it - in this analysis would my local coffee shop have to buy and provide free newspapers to me? I'm all for access to free press being a fundamental right. Where you lose me is the part where a private corporation is supposed to subsidize the production of news for me.

Meta is not your local coffee shop.

What is the relavent distinction?
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