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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

#81

Post by bawolff »

anticristi wrote: post #67
scribu wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this article on simple linking vs. previewing sums up the issue: https://theconversation.com/webs-inventor-says-news-media-ba...

Awesome summary. It seems to me that this is a bit of a failure of the fair use doctrine. Making one preview of an image or article does not impact the author's monetisation ability. Making a business out of systematically producing previews (and adding your own ads around them) should no longer quality as fair use. We have a joke: A: How much is a drop of gas? B: A drop of gas? Well, zero! A: One million drops of ga…

Fair use (or i guess fair dealing in australia) isn't totally about not negatively impacting other people's businesses. It helps your fair use argument if you don't impact, but there are plenty of clear cases where its fair use despite negative business impact. For example writing a scathing negative review of something that has quotes for context.

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

#82

Post by ocdtrekkie »

gkmcd wrote: post #60

A key part of this legislation is the requirements for tech companies to provide selected news organisations with advance notice about changes to ranking algorithms. This has been generally overlooked in the reporting and discussion but I believe it is the actually the most important part of the legislation. It will give the selected news organisations an enormous advantage over other companies not included and prote…

The only problem I have with this requirement is that it requires giving only news organizations access to this information. Your concerns can adequately be addressed by ensuring everyone has even access to that information.

Google and Facebook's algorithms should be required to be publicly disclosed. As a society, we should demand that we are able to see the algorithms that every web property lives and dies based on, that lives are built and destroyed by.

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

#83

Post by ahepp »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #65
ahepp wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't been able to find a source for this (apologies), but my recollection is that before threatening to leave Australia, Google threatened to simply stop linking to news sites in Australia. I believe they were told this would be illegal.

> before threatening to leave Australia, Google threatened to simply stop linking to news sites in Australia. I believe they were told this would be illegal. This is the most unacceptable aspect of this policy. If you want to say "you must pay to link", that's bad policy that's been bought and paid for, but it at least can be worked around and doesn't compel linking or other association. But "you must pay to link and…

I think there's something to the idea that given google should pay to link, they should not be able to sidestep the regulation through monopoly power.

That said, I strongly disagree with the premise.

I guess Google decided market share was worth more than the cost. I have to admit, I think it would be satisfying to see Australia face consequences for what seems like a pattern of hostility to the open digital world.

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

#84

Post by jsnell »

nostromo wrote: post #59
clouddrover wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the Australian government misunderstanding? They wanted a better deal for domestic news media, they are getting a better deal for domestic news media: https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/google-nine-agree-... https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56101859 The Australian government's approach is working.

This is how regulatory capture happens. Google can afford to pay for the right to link to publishers. New startups can't. Australia has strengthened Google's monopoly, all in the guise of "taking on" big tech.

First, Cloudrover's link has nothing to do with the law, nor on linking to news content. It's about showing news content inline in some new app that nobody has heard of, nor will use.

Second, the Australian law does not apply to all companies. It just applies to the companies the current government decides it applies to. (It's not that it will even be selectively enforced. It literally only applies to a specific set of companies, which is currently FB and Google.)

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

#85

Post by rsj_hn »

DevKoala wrote: post #40
pantsforbirds wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook showed in their release the monetary value of they provided the news companies. I can't see how you could possible argue they do not provide value to the classic media companies by allowing them to be linked and discussed freely on their feeds.

Facebook can say a lot of things, but I bet the publishers also have their own numbers and they are the ones who pushed for this deal.

You understand that publishers control the distribution of their content, right? Facebook users merely pass around links. Publishers can block page loads from Facebook or put up a paywall anytime they want to. Some (like WSJ) chose to do so and others do not. This is basically a decision as to whether they receive more in value from those links than they do from blocking the links.

Thus the publishers have already revealed whether they benefit or not, by choosing to allow or disallow the traffic. There is no rational argument that they were being "hurt" by the traffic.

Of course Tech is now politically unpopular, and if you are Australian then it is foreign tech -- even more unpopular -- so why not use this political environment to try to extract some cash payments? Everyone wants to receive cash payments, and I can understand why a for-profit Industry would want cash payments, but what is harder to understand is why the public would view them as victims if they didn't get those payments, as they have already made it clear that they are benefitting from the tech traffic by allowing it and by setting up marketing accounts in Facebook and promoting/ sharing links to their stories there. Yet in addition to that they want to receive cash from Facebook. Well, that's a bit of a fantasy, now, isn't it?

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

#86

Post by marcod »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #68
evolve2k wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Australian Government for ages has been trying to get the news organisations and the social media giants to come together and establish a voluntary media code that addresses concerns of multiple parties in a reasonable way. I’m sure each of you will be shocked to hear that Google & FB each have been hostile to the process form the start and have missed meetings and general behaved poorly and arrogantly in their d…

> Google & Fb know they are very powerful with limited obligations to Australians and so they are acting arrogantly and oppressively in their approach. I don't see what's arrogant about Facebook's approach here. They say they do not derive much value from this content, and the government is proposing to charge them much more than the value they do derive. So they are left with the only rational choice: to not have th…

I could totally see news orgs come crawling back to FB and ask them to put all the traffic back.

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

#87

Post by ocdtrekkie »

evolve2k wrote: post #55
endisneigh wrote: post #15

Could someone summarize both positions? It seems pretty reasonable to me - my understanding is that Australia wants Google and Facebook to pay lump sums to have their content on their platforms (as opposed to per-click). Google and Facebook can basically say yes or no. How is this different than, say, The New York Times saying the same thing about their content?

The Australian Government for ages has been trying to get the news organisations and the social media giants to come together and establish a voluntary media code that addresses concerns of multiple parties in a reasonable way. I’m sure each of you will be shocked to hear that Google & FB each have been hostile to the process form the start and have missed meetings and general behaved poorly and arrogantly in their d…

This comment should be pinned to the top of every comment thread on the matter, and required reading before anyone else comments.

The Australian law is the first one with teeth, after many years of Google and Facebook smothering any reasonable measures any country anywhere has proposed. So yeah, it "feels unfair" at this point, because that's the only thing that'll work at this point, to use sovereign national power to order Google and Facebook to comply.

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

#88

Post by mythz »

March_f6 wrote: post #53
mythz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you RTFA? They're having to put content moderation guards in-place: - To stop Australian publishers from sharing any content on FB - Prevent International or Australian news from being viewed or shared by Australians Failing to see how this benefits Australians or Australian news publishers.

It benefits them by reducing their exposure to online echo chambers reinforced by fake or extremely biased news that are endemic to Facebook. It benefits them by forcing them to get their news directly from the source rather than wrapped in a context Facebook decides upon. It sounds as though you presuppose FB is or should be the only source of news. And yes I did read it. And I thought critically about it :)

I'd say it's wishful thinking that you believe a majority of the population is going to visit all their news sources directly rather than simply ignore they exist.

News publishers were voluntarily posting on FB themselves to generate traffic to their own sites, it's some warped tough love view to think removing their ability to share content is somehow for their own benefit.

> It sounds as though you presuppose FB is or should be the only source of news.

Never stated anything remotely close to infer this false assumption, ironic that in the same breath you're lambasting FB for spreading misinformation.

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

#89

Post by Jonanin »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #82
gkmcd wrote: post #60

A key part of this legislation is the requirements for tech companies to provide selected news organisations with advance notice about changes to ranking algorithms. This has been generally overlooked in the reporting and discussion but I believe it is the actually the most important part of the legislation. It will give the selected news organisations an enormous advantage over other companies not included and prote…

The only problem I have with this requirement is that it requires giving only news organizations access to this information. Your concerns can adequately be addressed by ensuring everyone has even access to that information. Google and Facebook's algorithms should be required to be publicly disclosed. As a society, we should demand that we are able to see the algorithms that every web property lives and dies based on…

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.

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

#90

Post by bawolff »

evolve2k wrote: post #55
endisneigh wrote: post #15

Could someone summarize both positions? It seems pretty reasonable to me - my understanding is that Australia wants Google and Facebook to pay lump sums to have their content on their platforms (as opposed to per-click). Google and Facebook can basically say yes or no. How is this different than, say, The New York Times saying the same thing about their content?

The Australian Government for ages has been trying to get the news organisations and the social media giants to come together and establish a voluntary media code that addresses concerns of multiple parties in a reasonable way. I’m sure each of you will be shocked to hear that Google & FB each have been hostile to the process form the start and have missed meetings and general behaved poorly and arrogantly in their d…

> I’m sure each of you will be shocked to hear that Google & FB each have been hostile to the process form the start and have missed meetings

A powerful company resisting a process from which they have nothing to gain. Shocking!

If you want people to come together, you need to give both sides something to gain (or put a (metaphorical) gun to one sides head). Of course fb is going to resist a process where they only stand to lose something and the best outcome possible for them is the status quo. Wouldn't you also resist such a meeting?

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