Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

ctvnews.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 503 posts

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#51

Post by danbtl »

reaperducer wrote: post #34
lordleft wrote: post #12

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? It's a mutually beneficial relationship. I'm a bit puzzled as to why this was pushed, I'd love some context for this.

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Actually, no. It might be a symbiotic relationship for a small-time blog, but for a major news organization, it isn't. The Toronto Star and Global TV don't need freepub from Google. One example among many: Most people see the headline – the headline written by a paid headline writer based on an article from a paid journalist…

You might be underestimating the amount of traffic Google sends to publishers through Google News. Anecdotally, I get Android notifications from CBC, Global, etc. through Google News daily and do sometimes click on them.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#52

Post by regnard »

dmayle wrote: post #42
reaperducer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Actually, no. It might be a symbiotic relationship for a small-time blog, but for a major news organization, it isn't. The Toronto Star and Global TV don't need freepub from Google. One example among many: Most people see the headline – the headline written by a paid headline writer based on an article from a paid journalist…

This is the most ridiculous take on this that I've ever seen. Next you're going to say that newspaper stands need to pay a charge to the newspaper each time someone walks by their stall (or buys gum, for example). They have seen the headline, and then moved on. Very often a headline is all someone needs or wants. That has value. Without anyone buying that newspaper, the newspaper stand has got value from the headline…

I agree with this take-- and this is probably why Google and Meta were the only companies included. What about Reddit, Twitter, (and even HN)?

The counterpoint here is that this bill is very protectionist in nature and aims to give something to the Canadian news & media industry.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#53

Post by monsieurgaufre »

Disclaimer: Am Canadian.

The way i see it, it's a clear case of "we tried nothing and we're out of ideas" on BOTH sides. The canadian medias are boring and are mostly opinions and a few Reuters/AFP articles. On the other hand, GOOG and Meta are not even acknowledging that they're trying to bully nations around while providing a slowly worse service as time goes by and profiteering from work they acquire for free. I do understand that people weren't forced to use this service in the past and can (with some level of difficulties) remove their content.

It's not as clear an issue some would like it to be. I know that I will remove myself of both these services in the future as they are hostile (and really, i should move to my own domain for lots of reasons).

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#54

Post by reaperducer »

dmayle wrote: post #42
reaperducer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Actually, no. It might be a symbiotic relationship for a small-time blog, but for a major news organization, it isn't. The Toronto Star and Global TV don't need freepub from Google. One example among many: Most people see the headline – the headline written by a paid headline writer based on an article from a paid journalist…

This is the most ridiculous take on this that I've ever seen. Next you're going to say that newspaper stands need to pay a charge to the newspaper each time someone walks by their stall (or buys gum, for example). They have seen the headline, and then moved on. Very often a headline is all someone needs or wants. That has value. Without anyone buying that newspaper, the newspaper stand has got value from the headline…

The real problem is that newspapers would just like to take a percentage of Google revenue, because they're a big company.

If that's the case, let Google do its own reporting and write its own headlines. It's not like it doesn't have the money. Problem solved.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#55

Post by opportune »

anderspitman wrote: post #33

The web may never be better than it was about 5 years ago, and that makes me very sad

To me the inflection point was the 2016 US election (which also coincided with Brexit).

Independent of the elections I think social media websites had by this time “perfected” engagement-driven algorithmic feeds and online news had started getting good at optimizing their content for those purposes. And around this time, anecdotally, is when I think a lot of older people started taking the internet more seriously, as real-world services like Airbnb/Uber/Amazon prime (to be fair, started earlier) became popular and middle aged people started using social media more. This, in combination with the polarizing content of the elections, made the internet into the hostile and echo-chambery place it is today. And it also attracted a lot more Government attention leading to things like GDPR (good in theory, bad inasmuch as it led to the current cookie banner bullshit) and link taxes.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#56

Post by bboygravity »

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #43
anderspitman wrote: post #33

The web may never be better than it was about 5 years ago, and that makes me very sad

Totally disagree, LLMs are so much better than search engines ever were.

That kind of proves the point: the internet is more than LLMs and search engines.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#57

Post by reaperducer »

danbtl wrote: post #51
reaperducer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Actually, no. It might be a symbiotic relationship for a small-time blog, but for a major news organization, it isn't. The Toronto Star and Global TV don't need freepub from Google. One example among many: Most people see the headline – the headline written by a paid headline writer based on an article from a paid journalist…

You might be underestimating the amount of traffic Google sends to publishers through Google News. Anecdotally, I get Android notifications from CBC, Global, etc. through Google News daily and do sometimes click on them.

You might be underestimating the amount of traffic Google sends to publishers through Google News.

I have worked for two major newspaper companies. I might know a little bit about this.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#58

Post by pessimizer »

Between legacy news organizations complaining about links and the censorship of news coming from blacklisted areas of the world, what will social media and news aggregators be left with?

Also, I have to believe that some of these outlets will go under without social media traffic. You can get Canadian wire service content from any US website that decides to publish it.

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#59

Post by scarface_74 »

reaperducer wrote: post #34
lordleft wrote: post #12

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? It's a mutually beneficial relationship. I'm a bit puzzled as to why this was pushed, I'd love some context for this.

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Actually, no. It might be a symbiotic relationship for a small-time blog, but for a major news organization, it isn't. The Toronto Star and Global TV don't need freepub from Google. One example among many: Most people see the headline – the headline written by a paid headline writer based on an article from a paid journalist…

How much would Google be hurt if it just stopped indexing news sites?

Re: Bill C-18: Google to remove news links in Canada over online news law

#60

Post by pgrote »

reaperducer wrote: post #34
lordleft wrote: post #12

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? It's a mutually beneficial relationship. I'm a bit puzzled as to why this was pushed, I'd love some context for this.

Surely news publications benefit more from Google/Facebook providing links to their content? Actually, no. It might be a symbiotic relationship for a small-time blog, but for a major news organization, it isn't. The Toronto Star and Global TV don't need freepub from Google. One example among many: Most people see the headline – the headline written by a paid headline writer based on an article from a paid journalist…

>Very often a headline is all someone needs or wants. That has value. Without anyone clicking through to the web site, Google is getting the value from the headline, and contributing nothing to the web site in return.

So the solution Google is proposing works out for everyone. Canadian news sites can ensure people go to their site for headlines and Google can no longer show information for those sites. The Canadian news sites should see increased revenue in terms of subscriptions and advertisements.

Post reply on HN