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Facebook rejects calls to share advertising revenue with Australian media

asiatimes.com

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Re: Facebook rejects calls to share advertising revenue with Australian media

#81

Post by rutthenut »

toast0 wrote: post #80
moksly wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an American perspective, sure, but in a lot of countries we ask ourselves if letting these companies operate freely is a benefit for our society. I can see why moving money from Facebook to local news media would benefit Australia, and let’s not pretend we can’t force Google or Facebook to comply. Just look at what they are willing to do for China.

Even if I try to imagine an Australian perspective, demanding Google and Facebook pay the newspapers 10% of revenue seems pretty bizarre. It would seem better to just charge a 10% tax on advertising, put that in the general fund, and then subsidise newspapers however you see fit, which may or may not amount to the same AUD but can more easily change over time.

Yes, would think surely this ought to be managed by a tax that keeps some of the money in-country, whether or not it gets shared with the press (which brings a lot of issues about subsidies, free speech and more). Wondering, do FB/Google pay any substantial corporate tax bills in Australia?

Re: Facebook rejects calls to share advertising revenue with Australian media

#82

Post by octodog »

bzb3 wrote: post #69
andrewshadura wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, don't use RT to support your point, since it may create an impression they're a trustworthy source of information.

They are as trustworthy as any other. You've an axe to grind.

Whether you choose to trust them or not, they have a history of publishing content that is false and serves to advance and protect Russia's interests.

One such example on the Skripal poisoning: https://www.rt.com/news/452946-skripal-anniversary-truth-nov...

If you want you can read more about RT and Sputnik here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/research-analysis/wea...

Re: Facebook rejects calls to share advertising revenue with Australian media

#83

Post by creato »

moksly wrote: post #55
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #9

Australia’s competition regulator, the ACCC, has estimated that Google and Facebook together earn some A$6 billion (US$4 billion) a year from advertising in the country. Leading news publishers have demanded the two companies pay at least 10% of that money each year to local news organizations. News organizations want ten percent of FB and Goog's advertising revenue? I guess I do too but this concept is facially absu…

From an American perspective, sure, but in a lot of countries we ask ourselves if letting these companies operate freely is a benefit for our society. I can see why moving money from Facebook to local news media would benefit Australia, and let’s not pretend we can’t force Google or Facebook to comply. Just look at what they are willing to do for China.

> Just look at what they are willing to do for China.

... What are they willing to do? Aren't they both banned in China?

Re: Facebook rejects calls to share advertising revenue with Australian media

#84

Post by sjy »

It’s unfortunate that the actual submission by Facebook hasn’t been published and the linked article provides little background on the “mandatory code of conduct” proposal Facebook is responding to. This relates to a concepts paper the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released on 19 May [1], following the government’s announcement on 20 April [2] that it had “directed the ACCC to develop a mandatory code of conduct to address bargaining power imbalances between digital platforms and media companies.”

[1] https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-m...

[2] https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/josh-frydenberg-...

The concepts paper seeks feedback on several alternative proposals and says nothing about appropriating 10% of Google and Facebook’s revenue (this suggestion appears to come from another unpublished submission from a news outlet). The ACCC paper highlights a range of problems faced by news publishers seeking to negotiate with digital platforms, including the difficulty of estimating the value to Facebook and Google of linked and embedded news content (especially without access to Facebook and Google’s internal data), the lack of transparency in the algorithms Facebook and Google use to rank and display content, and the inability of small publishers to meaningfully communicate with these companies through automated support systems. The paper also points out that the threat of government intervention appears to have triggered a response from Facebook and Google on some of these issues.

Addressing information asymmetry and other market imperfections is part of the ACCC’s purpose of “enhancing the welfare of Australians through the promotion of competition and fair trading” [3]. Let’s not immediately write this off as an anti-competitive attempt to entrench “old media.”

[3] https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/caca20102...

Re: Facebook rejects calls to share advertising revenue with Australian media

#85

Post by bzb3 »

octodog wrote: post #82
bzb3 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are as trustworthy as any other. You've an axe to grind.

Whether you choose to trust them or not, they have a history of publishing content that is false and serves to advance and protect Russia's interests. One such example on the Skripal poisoning: https://www.rt.com/news/452946-skripal-anniversary-truth-nov... If you want you can read more about RT and Sputnik here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/research-analysis/wea...

I don't trust them, in very much the same way I don't trust any other media outlet, since you'll find similar stories for any other online newspaper.

But by singling them out, you make it sound like they are the worst, when they are basically average

Re: Facebook rejects calls to share advertising revenue with Australian media

#86

Post by Traster »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #66
andrewshadura wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, don't use RT to support your point, since it may create an impression they're a trustworthy source of information.

Please point us to a trustworthy source of information. You can’t. There aren’t any.

That's not really the point is it, of course no organisation can be trusted 100%, but that doesn't mean that Russia's state sponsored propaganda network and actual commercial news organisations are the same. I can literally provide you links to RT doing exclusive interviews with people who have carried out chemical weapons attacks in the UK to provide a cover for the Russian government[1]. Let's not pretend that's the same as real news organisations who sometimes get things wrong.

[1]: https://www.rt.com/news/438350-petrov-boshirov-interview-sim...

Re: Facebook rejects calls to share advertising revenue with Australian media

#87

Post by sjy »

twblalock wrote: post #79
fxtentacle wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These newspapers aren't getting outcompeted. They are having their content stolen. If Facebook would prevent people from posting links from these newspapers and instead show an error message that says that it isn't allowed because Facebook doesn't want to pay for it, how do you think people would react?

How is posting a link considered stealing content?

Some say that copyright infringement is stealing, and some say that the decline of the news media could be reversed by extending copyright to prohibit the unauthorised posting of links to, or snippets of, news content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancillary_copyright_for_press_...

Re: Facebook rejects calls to share advertising revenue with Australian media

#88

Post by Arnt »

moksly wrote: post #55
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #9

Australia’s competition regulator, the ACCC, has estimated that Google and Facebook together earn some A$6 billion (US$4 billion) a year from advertising in the country. Leading news publishers have demanded the two companies pay at least 10% of that money each year to local news organizations. News organizations want ten percent of FB and Goog's advertising revenue? I guess I do too but this concept is facially absu…

From an American perspective, sure, but in a lot of countries we ask ourselves if letting these companies operate freely is a benefit for our society. I can see why moving money from Facebook to local news media would benefit Australia, and let’s not pretend we can’t force Google or Facebook to comply. Just look at what they are willing to do for China.

Forcing compliance is simple: Just change the tax laws. So what would the law say? A tax 10% of advertising revenue on... what kind of advertising? All advertising? That sounds really simple, just increase the VAT by 10% for advertising products.

Re: Facebook rejects calls to share advertising revenue with Australian media

#89

Post by Arnt »

Arnt wrote: post #88
moksly wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an American perspective, sure, but in a lot of countries we ask ourselves if letting these companies operate freely is a benefit for our society. I can see why moving money from Facebook to local news media would benefit Australia, and let’s not pretend we can’t force Google or Facebook to comply. Just look at what they are willing to do for China.

Forcing compliance is simple: Just change the tax laws. So what would the law say? A tax 10% of advertising revenue on... what kind of advertising? All advertising? That sounds really simple, just increase the VAT by 10% for advertising products.

Replying to myself because this reminds me of something in another country, decades ago.

This other country had a tax rule that was intended to help news media, and one of the ministries had to decide what "news media" meant, in effect set terms for who benefited.

This went well for a decade or more. Then, someone in that ministry wrote a memo that said (abbreviated and modernised): "Last week, published a% clickbait, b% celebrity blahblah and other rubbish, and only c% factual news. We need to consider whether it is a news medium as required for the tax rule."

I have a feeling that the Austrialian companies that want a part of Googles/Facebook's income do not want any sort of just or equal tax rule, and also do absolutely not want to be restricted to publishing mostly news.

Re: Facebook rejects calls to share advertising revenue with Australian media

#90

Post by mrep »

im3w1l wrote: post #37
MattGaiser wrote: post #7

What is it that causes news companies to lose money because of Google and Facebook? I am still visiting their site to read the article. If you only read the headline, you aren't a serious consumer of news anyway.

It's a consequence of three things: 1. Facts can't be copyrighted. 2. Continuous publishing. 3. Google and Facebook cause a large preference for free content. If you do great journalistic work and try to charge for it, moments later (no longer a full day) someone else will change a few words around and offer it for free. And Google and Facebook will lead everyone to their story. Those who create value are unable to c…

Agreed. I think it will be especially interesting to watch things in the EU as the link tax seems to me to be partially aimed at stopping the rephrasing and linking back to a paywalled article by another free website, and the copyright directive seems to be aimed at stopping a single user with access from posting the entire article in some comment which I see happen a bunch on reddit and sometimes here.
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