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Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

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Re: Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

#131

Post by tomComb »

tw04 wrote: post #78

Oh no, not that, anything but that. In all seriousness I hope this drives the less informed in Australia to seek out actual news sources and break out of the echo chamber that is Facebook. And I hope it forces Facebook to actually support journalism instead of leeching off of it. You can't have a robust democracy without a robust fourth estate.

If FB thought that would happen they wouldn't have done.

And have you seen the types of 'information' people share on Facebook when they are not sharing links to news? I think users will stay in Facebook but share lower quality stuff.

Re: Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

#132

Post by Isinlor »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #102
Jonanin wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These algorithms are not human readable code. They are massively complex interconnected systems of many black box ML models. I don't understand what clarity people think releasing the "algorithms" will bring. In fact, describing ranking as a single algorithm is pretty misleading.

I also believe any algorithm that isn't human-readable should be banned. If it can't be understood, nobody can validate that it isn't racist, sexist, or slanted towards encouraging violence and harm. The fact that technology companies have been grossly negligent and irresponsible isn't a reason to not regulate them: It's proof regulation needs to be much, much stronger.

Do you apply the same standard to people?

Tell me, how did your brain come up with what you wrote? How do I validate that it isn't racist, sexist, or slanted towards encouraging violence and harm?

Re: Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

#133

Post by angry_octet »

worik wrote: post #58

Can anybody explain to me what the problem is with Facebook et el driving traffic to news sites? Most of the times I visit newspapers websites I was sent there from social media.

Those ads you see in FB and next to google results generate money for them, not for the websites whose content you're looking at. Basically the portal collects money from helping the advertiser match closely to people who will buy, but the content platforms don't have that info on the user and can't influence their decision making process as much.

Re: Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

#134

Post by wvenable »

60secz wrote: post #38
gambiting wrote: post #4

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I think I'm going to side with FB on this. The Australian government is once again showing absolute disregard when it comes to understanding technology, and its signature heavy handed approach to regulation.

Laws of economics are pretty clear on this. News, especially international news, is a commodity. Government can impose monopoly ruls to try to allow distribution channels to extract more, but technology (and users) will find ways to route around this as damage to the network. People don't want to pay for news. They don't like ads, but will tolerate them to a point, and most definitely don't want to pay for subscripti…

The problem isn't so much that people don't want to pay for news. But if the competition is giving away news for free, news now has a price of zero.

You have a global network of individuals and companies producing news. If you offer good news for $5 but someone else is offering acceptable news for $0 that acceptable news is going to win every time.

Re: Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

#136

Post by tomComb »

Sephr wrote: post #54

Honestly wish Google did this as well instead of bowing down to unjust laws.

Agreed, but that became a lot less likely when Microsoft supported the new law (while claiming they were taking the moral high ground).

Reminds me of when Google pulled out of China over censorship and Microsoft took the opportunity to try to jump in and take their place (in search).

Re: Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

#137

Post by flukus »

quink wrote: post #5
gambiting wrote: post #4

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I think I'm going to side with FB on this. The Australian government is once again showing absolute disregard when it comes to understanding technology, and its signature heavy handed approach to regulation.

One recent quote from the former prime minister when Australia was planning to introduce backdoors to end-to-end encryption: > "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia"

And this was a hip "tech savvy" PM who was CxO at an ISP, the rest of them are worse.

Re: Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

#138

Post by dang »

Facebook-specific threads on this from last year:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24337269 - "An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia", 2020-09-01, 158 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24347676 - "Facebook to block news on Australian sites after new law, riling lawmakers", 2020-09-01, 78 comments

The big threads about this issue include:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26111783 - "Australia to introduce Google, Facebook legislation to parliament next week", 2021-02-12, 269 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26030135 - "Google News Showcase Launches in Australia", 2021-02-04, 54 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25999799 - "Australia’s PM suggests Bing adequate if Google blocks searches", 2021-02-02, 175 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25987671 - "Communications Minister touts the opportunities of a Google-less Australia", 2021-02-01, 49 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25903511 - "Australia’s Proposed “Fox News Tax”", 2021-01-25, 29 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25873001 - "Could Google Really Leave Australia?", 2021-01-22, 51 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25870571 - "The spat between Google and Australia, as reported on HN", 2021-01-22, 95 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25867547 - "Google Threatens to Remove Search in Australia as Spat Escalates", 2021-01-22, 33 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25867264 - "Google threatens to withdraw search engine from Australia", 2021-01-22, 135 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25866493 - "Google threatens to disable search in Australia if media code becomes law", 2021-01-22, 18 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25789773 - "Google looks at pulling all or part of its search engine from Australia", 2021-01-15, 71 comments

Others?

Re: Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

#139

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #102
Jonanin wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These algorithms are not human readable code. They are massively complex interconnected systems of many black box ML models. I don't understand what clarity people think releasing the "algorithms" will bring. In fact, describing ranking as a single algorithm is pretty misleading.

I also believe any algorithm that isn't human-readable should be banned. If it can't be understood, nobody can validate that it isn't racist, sexist, or slanted towards encouraging violence and harm. The fact that technology companies have been grossly negligent and irresponsible isn't a reason to not regulate them: It's proof regulation needs to be much, much stronger.

> I also believe any algorithm that isn't human-readable should be banned. If it can't be understood, nobody can validate that it isn't racist, sexist, or slanted towards encouraging violence and harm.

I'm not sure a human-readable algorithm exists for ranking all the web pages in the world based on natural language input. In fact, I'm pretty sure such an algorithm does not, and potentially cannot, exist given the absolute failure of all approaches towards NLP that weren't based on absolute masses of text data and complex models.

Are you willing to make Google 10% as effective to achieve your goal of a human-readable algorithm?

Re: Changes to sharing and viewing news on Facebook in Australia

#140

Post by ocdtrekkie »

Isinlor wrote: post #132
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also believe any algorithm that isn't human-readable should be banned. If it can't be understood, nobody can validate that it isn't racist, sexist, or slanted towards encouraging violence and harm. The fact that technology companies have been grossly negligent and irresponsible isn't a reason to not regulate them: It's proof regulation needs to be much, much stronger.

Do you apply the same standard to people? Tell me, how did your brain come up with what you wrote? How do I validate that it isn't racist, sexist, or slanted towards encouraging violence and harm?

Very few people have the ability to influence the success or failure of every business on the planet. Those that do are heavily scrutinized for racist or sexist behavior. (Sometimes they also don't get convicted anyways, but that's another matter.)
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