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Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia

zdnet.com

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Re: Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia

#11

Post by op03 »

hestefisk wrote: post #9

Am I the only one who finds it hypocritical that the Liberal government is ok with Murdoch owning pretty much the entire Australian free press; yet they are against monopolisation of search and basic http-based news distribution (ie simple web scraping). The reason people read news online is because Aussie news papers are generally such racist garbage and their web sites are either paywalled or stuffed with ads. Sorr…

Contradictory logic pfft.

Have you checked your families google app/news feed or whatever they are calling that thing these days. Its like Meghan Markle is the most important person in the world.

I mean initially it was fun to rib my Dad about why he is getting so many Meghan Markle updates. But now I am just scared to even look at phones in the family, given the amount of addictive garbage that is being pumped into them non stop.

Re: Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia

#12

Post by strken »

This is absolutely ridiculous legislation, because it doesn't give Google the option of just removing all these news sources from search results if their asking price is too high. In effect, there's no choice but to pull the entirety of search out of Australia, or pay whatever arbitrary price the arbitration process comes up with. It's like forcing internationally-owned supermarkets to stock newspapers at a price determined initially by the Murdoch press and in the case of disputes by a protectionist government panel, or leave the country entirely.

Re: Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia

#13

Post by Gatsky »

robin21 wrote: post #3
nness wrote: post #2

If we ever needed any proof that Australia's Liberal (conservative) party was a puppet for News Corp, its this law.

Can you explain?

News corp, headed Rupert Murdoch, owns a lot of media in Australia. Most of this media is abjectly shithouse but heavily consumed by people aged 60+. Murdoch wields undue political power because of this, which induces elected politicians to fawn over him. They gave him the order of Australia the other week for example, which seems nonsensical to many actual Australian citizens, to whom he appears to be a rich prick sabotaging the national conversation.

The frankly embarrassing attempt to siphon money from Google into Murdoch’s pockets is simply the current conservative government ensuring they get excellent media coverage at the next election.

If I have to use a VPN to get decent search results because of this nonsense I will NOT be pleased.

Re: Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia

#14

Post by GizmoSwan »

They won't block google because they are aligned with US. Google will probably remove it's news tab in Australia.

No matter which country. news organizations have to eventually find a way to organize and deal with their internet providers to get a fee based on quality and quantity of news they provide.

Re: Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia

#15

Post by zeofig »

hestefisk wrote: post #9

Am I the only one who finds it hypocritical that the Liberal government is ok with Murdoch owning pretty much the entire Australian free press; yet they are against monopolisation of search and basic http-based news distribution (ie simple web scraping). The reason people read news online is because Aussie news papers are generally such racist garbage and their web sites are either paywalled or stuffed with ads. Sorr…

Yeah I'm not a fan of the law either. Google's response was also irritating: plastering ads for their video (against the new law) on every search made from Australia.

Re: Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia

#16

Post by nr2x »

strken wrote: post #12

This is absolutely ridiculous legislation, because it doesn't give Google the option of just removing all these news sources from search results if their asking price is too high. In effect, there's no choice but to pull the entirety of search out of Australia, or pay whatever arbitrary price the arbitration process comes up with. It's like forcing internationally-owned supermarkets to stock newspapers at a price det…

And yet google requires new users to agree to arbitration when creating accounts. Good for the goose...

Re: Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia

#17

Post by throwaways885 »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #5
nness wrote: post #2

If we ever needed any proof that Australia's Liberal (conservative) party was a puppet for News Corp, its this law.

As somebody who dislikes both the established old media firms of Murdoch & Co, but despises the parasitic Tech surveillance capitalism even more, I welcome this (regressive) attitude. Europeans are fighting for similar reasons which is loss of control of their own media and a takeover by US propaganda and norms by companies who have failed to pay their taxes again and again. imo it doesn't matter that many of these l…

'Australian concentration camps'?

Re: Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia

#18

Post by meditative »

throwaways885 wrote: post #17
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody who dislikes both the established old media firms of Murdoch & Co, but despises the parasitic Tech surveillance capitalism even more, I welcome this (regressive) attitude. Europeans are fighting for similar reasons which is loss of control of their own media and a takeover by US propaganda and norms by companies who have failed to pay their taxes again and again. imo it doesn't matter that many of these l…

'Australian concentration camps'?

I assume they're referring to offshore detention.

Re: Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia

#19

Post by throwaways885 »

GizmoSwan wrote: post #14

They won't block google because they are aligned with US. Google will probably remove it's news tab in Australia. No matter which country. news organizations have to eventually find a way to organize and deal with their internet providers to get a fee based on quality and quantity of news they provide.

Imagine the outrage if your ISP told you the fee was going up to pay for Murdoch's propaganda machine.

Re: Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia

#20

Post by MattGaiser »

op03 wrote: post #11
hestefisk wrote: post #9

Am I the only one who finds it hypocritical that the Liberal government is ok with Murdoch owning pretty much the entire Australian free press; yet they are against monopolisation of search and basic http-based news distribution (ie simple web scraping). The reason people read news online is because Aussie news papers are generally such racist garbage and their web sites are either paywalled or stuffed with ads. Sorr…

Contradictory logic pfft. Have you checked your families google app/news feed or whatever they are calling that thing these days. Its like Meghan Markle is the most important person in the world. I mean initially it was fun to rib my Dad about why he is getting so many Meghan Markle updates. But now I am just scared to even look at phones in the family, given the amount of addictive garbage that is being pumped into…

Royals have been a favourite topic in the news since long before search engines existed.

The algo is just picking up on the same trends tabloids did. Tons of people want to read that stuff.

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