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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

#461

Post by tedk-42 »

gambiting wrote: post #419
tedk-42 wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever thought that the 'News' actually meant something? Like, what you see on television or gets printed in a newspaper needs to go through an editorial cycle, fact checked etc? The legislation is effectively giving actual journalists the ability to continue creating what we've historically considered news and protecting that form of occupation. There's a lot of misinformation going on on the web and things c…

>>The legislation is effectively giving actual journalists the ability to continue creating what we've historically considered news and protecting that form of occupation. Would you mind explaining how exactly does it do that? Maybe I am focusing on the wrong thing, but I haven't seen the side you've mentioned at all.

By compensating media companies for their news content.

It gives them more bargaining rights when dealing with tech companies as to what a 'fair' portion of revenue they should receive for having their stories presented on these sites.

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

#462

Post by abiogenesis »

oska wrote: post #429
abiogenesis wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blackmail is an exaggeration. The government is asking them to pay for news articles (that have been voluntarily shared) and what Facebook simply says is "we liked the articles when they were free, but thanks, we don't want to buy them".

We liked the articles when they were free and we could push ads alongside them and we don't want to share the profits we make from this ad-pushing, sorry . That's a much more true summary of their position I think. Facebook, exactly like Google, is an ad-pushing company. I don't have any sympathy for ad-pushing companies in the first instance and then even less for those who want to push ads against work they haven't…

Agreed, but we don't have to have sympathy for a company to be fair to them. This is their business model and they have every right not to change it.

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

#463

Post by pb7 »

oska wrote: post #460
pb7 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. There is no "3rd party content", it's just links, the basis for the internet. Anyone can stop their site from being indexed with one line of code if they're not happy with the value proposition. Google offered to stop indexing all Australian news sites altogether but that was deemed illegal because this is nothing but a forcible cash grab by a dying media monopoly that has the Australian government by t…

This article [1] (which I found because someone else linked to it in this thread), explains the situation well. Google & FB do not just link. > Part of the issue here is Google and Facebook don’t just collect a list of interesting links to news content. Rather the way they find, sort, curate and present news content adds value for their users. > They don’t just link to news content, they reframe it. It is often in th…

>Google & FB do not just link.

>Rather the way they find, sort, curate and present news content adds value for their users.

>They create compelling previews, usually by offering the headline of a news article, sometimes the first few lines, and often the first image extracted.

So not only do they link, but they make the links rich with media from the story to make them even more appealing to click on and drive more traffic to the news site than otherwise? Preposterous, I tell you!

If this had any semblance of credibility or logic, option #1 would be to remove snippets and images and option #2 would be to stop linking altogether. The fact that neither of those are acceptable options to the Australian government tells me everything I need to know about their intentions. And I gotta give credit where credit is due, they're good at being slimy bastards, because they have people like you fooled.

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

#464

Post by pasttense01 »

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

The United States has land borders with two countries: Canada and Mexico. However these are NOT considered to be major sources of Covid infection in the U.S.--instead it has been China and Europe. The U.S. could have set up controls eliminating people movement by air as easily as Australia did--but it failed to do so.

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

#465

Post by 0xy »

megablast wrote: post #438
0xy wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should be hostile to the ABC, because their journalistic standards are terrible. I've reported 3 factual inaccuracies to them and all of them took more than a month to retract. In one case, the inaccuracy affected the entire premise of the article. ABC's standards are that it's okay to lie as long as you retract it a month later in a tiny 10pt foot note. On the other hand, I've personally reported a similar arti…

You clearly don’t watch media watch. What are these supposed inaccuracies??

I've had retractions printed in nearly every Australian news website, and among the 3 times I've contacted the ABC about inaccurate reporting the average response time is 1.5 months. 100% of my reports resulted in retractions (extremely delayed ones).

This is not an organisation that cares about journalistic integrity. In fact they actively eschew ethics while their private sector counterparts reply in 1/50th the time or less.

Also, you're using an ABC-produced show as evidence that the ABC isn't ethically compromised? "We investigated ourselves and found we we did nothing wrong"?

Before you accuse me of being a shill, remember I've had retractions printed in News Corp outlets, too.

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

#466

Post by oska »

pb7 wrote: post #463
oska wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article [1] (which I found because someone else linked to it in this thread), explains the situation well. Google & FB do not just link. > Part of the issue here is Google and Facebook don’t just collect a list of interesting links to news content. Rather the way they find, sort, curate and present news content adds value for their users. > They don’t just link to news content, they reframe it. It is often in th…

>Google & FB do not just link. >Rather the way they find, sort, curate and present news content adds value for their users. >They create compelling previews, usually by offering the headline of a news article, sometimes the first few lines, and often the first image extracted. So not only do they link, but they make the links rich with media from the story to make them even more appealing to click on and drive more t…

Four quick (and final) points in response:

1) Your reply contains arrogance and a patronising sneer at myself. This is against this site's guidelines.

2) A quick perusal of your comment history shows more of the same attitude and also indications that you possibly work for Google.

3) You evidently didn't read the full article I linked to (only responded to the section I quoted) which is a very good analysis of this situation.

4) Preview links may drive some traffic to sites but most often ppl just respond to what's shown on FB (the headline, an image, and text snippet). So FB profits by mechanically condensing other parties' news stories on its site while posting ads against them, knowing that people most often won't go read the full story on the linked site and that they are driving an ever shallower take on the news.

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

#468

Post by Wolfenstein98k »

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

I agree, we are extremely lucky to be an island with hard borders. Most countries that have been very successful are hard islands.

But politics responds much more to outcomes than causes

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

#469

Post by Wolfenstein98k »

pasttense01 wrote: post #464
NicoJuicy wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The United States has land borders with two countries: Canada and Mexico. However these are NOT considered to be major sources of Covid infection in the U.S.--instead it has been China and Europe. The U.S. could have set up controls eliminating people movement by air as easily as Australia did--but it failed to do so.

This is an artefact of bad testing in non-developed countries.

You should assume it's ten or twenty times worse than the figures show, AT LEAST, in any countries that aren't fully transparent and rich enough to test widely.

Compare 477 to 16,000:

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/01/su...

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

#470

Post by pb7 »

oska wrote: post #466
pb7 wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google & FB do not just link. >Rather the way they find, sort, curate and present news content adds value for their users. >They create compelling previews, usually by offering the headline of a news article, sometimes the first few lines, and often the first image extracted. So not only do they link, but they make the links rich with media from the story to make them even more appealing to click on and drive more t…

Four quick (and final) points in response: 1) Your reply contains arrogance and a patronising sneer at myself. This is against this site's guidelines. 2) A quick perusal of your comment history shows more of the same attitude and also indications that you possibly work for Google. 3) You evidently didn't read the full article I linked to (only responded to the section I quoted) which is a very good analysis of this s…

I address only intellectual dishonesty. Misinformation and ignorance has gone on far too long and I'm going to do my part in making its distribution a little bit more annoying for its messengers.

P.S. How will you be paying The Conversation for the content you stole from them a few comments ago?

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