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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

#441

Post by TobTobXX »

g42gregory wrote: post #426
bobnamob wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fb may have overshot. They've not only blocked news pages but gov pages as well. Most people I know in aus have been getting covid updates purely through government body social media posts. These are now blocked.

>> They've not only blocked news pages but gov pages as well. Couldn't this be a viewed as a criminal act by the Australian government? Could they arrest FB employees in Australia for FB HQ blocking their pages, especially with the vital COVID-19 information?

Twitter blocked the old US president too. There's no legal repercussion against a private firm.

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

#442

Post by elyobo »

donnythecroc wrote: post #310
908B64B197 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's just like GDPR? Guidelines intentionally kept vague so that some bureaucrat can slap a huge fine and collect the rent? I wonder if that rent-seeking attitude will accelerate or curb the current brain drain Australia faces.

Google has been busy making major deals with news organisations. Facebook has chosen the opposite track. The problem Facebook has is government in Australia is wildly popular because of the pandemic. They can do what they want right now it won't lose them any votes. Ministers are already telling Facebook to leave the country completely!

Facebook and Google have not taken opposite tracks; Google hasn't made deals to pay for linking, a major problem with the legislation. Google's deals are around news content, but FB lacks comparable products to negotiate deals around, leaving them with only a refusal to pay for linking.

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

#443

Post by NicoJuicy »

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #439
NamTaf wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not call the federal government “wildly popular”. Most people are (rightly, IMO) laying our pandemic success at the feet of state politicians and realising that the federal level had been ineffective at best.

Fellow Aussie here - this is simply incorrect. Australia does have competitive federalism, and so many of the localised decisions have been from the states, but the major decisions for seeding - closing borders, acquiring vaccines, etc, along with fiscal backstopping - are federal. The federal government (under ScoMo) has never polled so well as it has during covid, and for good reason. (NB: I am no blind Coalition s…

But Australia is an island. It's much easier to be effective against covid.

Not really sure why the politicians get the slack. Which measurement was highly effective that could also be done in a country with neighbors.

Ps. I'm not pro Facebook. Just curious

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

#445

Post by elyobo »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #443
Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fellow Aussie here - this is simply incorrect. Australia does have competitive federalism, and so many of the localised decisions have been from the states, but the major decisions for seeding - closing borders, acquiring vaccines, etc, along with fiscal backstopping - are federal. The federal government (under ScoMo) has never polled so well as it has during covid, and for good reason. (NB: I am no blind Coalition s…

But Australia is an island. It's much easier to be effective against covid. Not really sure why the politicians get the slack. Which measurement was highly effective that could also be done in a country with neighbors. Ps. I'm not pro Facebook. Just curious

> Which measurement was highly effective that could also be done in a country with neighbors.

... All of them? I'm not sure why so many people seem to think water is required to make a border effective.

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

#446

Post by KvanteKat »

pjc50 wrote: post #437
xg15 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then publish the broad criteria behind the ranking and have the technical details be audited by the government behind closed doors.

State-mandated news ranking controlled by the ruling party in secret! I'm sure nothing can go wrong with that.

While I share your hesitation here, I think two points are important to keep in mind:

1. There is quite a difference between compulsory auditing (what the post you reply to refers to) and the government directly controlling industry.

2. In other industries this is quite commonplace and hasn't led to government takeover of industries (banking comes to mind. In their regulatory implementation on the Basel III accords developed in response to the 2008 financial crisis, both the UK and EU mandate government audits to ensure compliance with stress-testing and and leverage requirements; the US is also a signatory to these accords, but I am less familiar with their implementation into US law).

I'm not personally a huge fan of this approach, but I don't find the argument that government oversight is a slippery slope to totalitarianism that persuasive. In my opinion, a much a stronger critique of mandatory government audits is that they are often not that effective at preventing the negative outcomes they set out to prevent but still massively increase the legal complexity of operating in (or entering) a given industry without falling afoul of the law.

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

#447

Post by rosege »

lethologica wrote: post #390
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How Labor haven't turned that into a win is beyond me. The Libs are lying sacks of burning, corrupt garbage, and Labor are, seemingly, totally politically inept. Australia's two choices.

Vote Greens.

Vote for good independents

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

#448

Post by csomar »

catmanjan wrote: post #239
jjcm wrote: post #232

I live in Australia and while I'm excited to see less Facebook use, I see a lot of comments saying things like, "good, Facebook monetized an addiction model and this curbs that". While true, the proposed law that has pushed them to do this is incredibly dangerous. The law doesn't just apply to Facebook, it applies to whoever the Treasurer of Australia[0] says it applies to - it isn't metrics/rules based: https://i.im…

While that is probably technically true, in reality the Australian government is unlikely to make Australian businesses comply, giving them a competitive advantage - I think this is a protectionist policy, but the right won't admit to that because it goes against their "free market" ideals.

What's probably going to happen, however, is that small times bloggers will take over the news scene in Facebook. It won't bother me, since major news outlet have become crap already.

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

#449

Post by nojvek »

Normally I am against Facebook, but they are in the right here. This is totally Murdoch monopoly playing his political puppets to get this through.

I don’t know whether Australia will reverse this, but I really hope other countries don’t jump on the bandwagon. The reason why the Internet is the internet is because of free information sharing. Having laws that target specific companies for extortion is just dumb.

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

#450

Post by nojvek »

The real deal is what happens if Google blocks traffic to all Australian news site. That would be huge.

It’s pretty scary that a few people in parliament can sign a law that only serves a few rich and powerful people at the expense of its citizens.

What is the future of governance? Because 2021, it feels still like a drunken king doing what “feels good”

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