Facebook and "News"

[BruceK]

The Australian Govt is currently enacting laws to compel online behemoths to pay newsources for content they used to grab without paying. Google chucked its toys around, threatened to leave Australia, and to hold it`s breath until it went blue in the face(but only until Govt. welcomed Microsoft Bing`s offer to fill the space),and is now busily making agreements with news sources to pay. Facebook remains in umbrage and has removed all access to news content from its Aussie site, plus some "collateral damage", like Govt. Weather Forecasting Sites, etc,which it may be about restoring.
Concern is that like cigarette advertising,what we are doing will spread internationally. It`s symptomatic of Aussie irreverence for some long held practices of the high and mighty.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02...-betoota-caught-in-facebook-news-ban/13166394

 

[ssobol]

If your primary source for news is what you see on Facebook, you deserve what you get.

 

[BruceK]

If your primary source for news is what you see on Facebook, you deserve what you get.

Probably. Mine is not, I don`t even subscribe to Farcebook.
Turns out they disconnected a whole lot of sites other than News, like Govt health sites, lots of important sites for people`s welfare. No accident either, a negotiating tactic/cat scratch swipe it appears. People will react badly, Govt already has,FB made a tactical error doing that.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02...ees-sex-abuse-survivors-lose-archive/13167708

 

[FF]

Facebook? isn't that for old Twits living in moms basement ?

 

[BruceK]

Facebook? isn't that for old Twits living in moms basement ?

Young ones too. Seems 30% of people get their news via FB. Extraordinary.
What Australia is trying to do is make FB, Google, and others, pay newspapers and TV news and other providers a fee for news content they presently take it paying nothing,while profiting from the traffic it generates. Theft?
If we can, it`s half way through the legislature and has bilateral support, it will change how these organizations do business, probably worldwide, and, prime aim, help our news providers. It`s important, FB knows it, which is why they are fighting like cornered rats. We told Google if they didn`t like it they could leave Australia as they threatened, I hope the same goes for FB.

 

[ssobol]

Facebook? isn't that for old Twits living in moms basement ?

And their moms.

 

[tiltrider1]

Google will just pass it on in the form of higher rates to advertisers who will just pass it on in the form higher costs for products and services. In the end the news Corp will get richer and the consumer will get poorer. Go ahead, make fun of Google and FB, for once they were looking out for you.

 

[BruceK]

Google will just pass it on in the form of higher rates to advertisers who will just pass it on in the form higher costs for products and services. In the end the news Corp will get richer and the consumer will get poorer. Go ahead, make fun of Google and FB, for once they were looking out for you.

There is nothing funny about G or FB. They are serious profit making enterprises,serving no one`s interests but their own. Paying for something they presently appropriate for free is doubtless an anathema to them.Passing it on as a cost of doing business to advertisers is entirely unexceptional.

FB has already suffered reputational damage here, even after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. If it chooses to leave or curtail,the vacuum will be filled. As it would have been with G had it not reconsidered (though how well we are yet to see).

 

[tiltrider1]

The world is not so simple. FB is not leaving, they will probably create their own news business and become serious competitors to existing news sources. Most people think of FB as www.facebook.com and forget about all the other associated web businesses that they control. I don't believe this is going to turn out at all like the law makers think.

 

[FF]

The Gov of FL is working with the legislature on a bill that would cancel the "permission" given to harvest personal data when signing in to Google etc . and require a stand alone form to allow the company to collect your info.

The providers would be considered unlicensed so unable to operate in FL if info was collected without your specific permission.

I wish him luck , and hope his limo is at least as hardened as the Beast.

Personally since its all computerized I would hope a fee , 10c ? , would be sent to each customer that provides personal info each time the info is sold or passed out.

Authors get paid for each book sold , why not individuals who are selling their privacy?

 

[FWT]

Stats on "where people get their news" is deceptive to the point of inaccurate.

Rural newspapers died long ago. Local news gets shared in social media just by people posting stuff. More so than links to anything.

But that is being disrupted as more and more people leave Facebook, Twitter, etc., upset at the clear political bias, banning, and so forth.

Leaving no good way to share and read local news.

Its a void that will be filled somehow, because there is a need.

 

[oscar]

The world is not so simple. FB is not leaving, they will probably create their own news business and become serious competitors to existing news sources. Most people think of FB as www.facebook.com and forget about all the other associated web businesses that they control. I don't believe this is going to turn out at all like the law makers think.

One of the more erudite posts I've seen here in a long time......

 

[FF]

"I don't believe this is going to turn out at all like the law makers think."


Does it Ever?

 

[ssobol]

"I don't believe this is going to turn out at all like the law makers think."


Does it Ever?

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[Group9]

Considering how it is now pretty well established that Facebook censors and removes news stories they don't like or agree with, who in the world with an IQ over room temperature would use them for a news source?

 

[sbman]

I think it's pretty simple. If facebook is duplicating content from other sites and posting it, attributed/linked or not, they should pay for it, otherwise it's called theft. They can show a headline and a link for free as has been the case for a long time, driving traffic to the source of the article(s) so that the source's business model has a chance of working, that's how the web was designed to work. Scraping up other peoples content and reposting it is intellectual property theft.

 

[firehoser75]

I am mostly with Tiltrider on this one. In Canada they are considering a "link tax", which sounds similar to what Bruce is describing. In the end, I don't think this will work out in the "consumer's favour", and I fear a "world wide" spread.

Hope I am wrong.
Another trend that is concerning is the advancement of "censorship". To me, it is a "slippery slope", as who becomes the arbiter of what is censored and what is not. Over time, more and more things are "not allowed". To me, there is just too much room for "special interests", etc., and a form of control over what we are "allowed" to see and know. The beginnings of the rise of facism?? or other forms of "group think"?

 

[BruceK]

Anything we can extract from FB, G,and their ilk, for the news services they pilfer their content from, will be a plus.Even if some flows to US citizen, Rupert Murdoch, and News corp.
Extracting taxes is equally challenging in the face of interesting accounting practises.
Plain packaging of cigarette packs was pioneered in Australia, it`s why in many places around the world pretty branding is replaced by images of grisly life threatening lesions, despite many legal challenges.
Stockholders of these organizations might be unhappy but taking something for nothing, that someone else produced at their own cost, needs addressing.If there were no $$$ in it for them G and FB would not be so upset. Clearly, there is value in it.

 

[tiltrider1]

Anything we can extract from FB, G,and their ilk, for the news services they pilfer their content from, will be a plus.Even if some flows to US citizen, Rupert Murdoch, and News corp.
Extracting taxes is equally challenging in the face of interesting accounting practises.
Plain packaging of cigarette packs was pioneered in Australia, it`s why in many places around the world pretty branding is replaced by images of grisly life threatening lesions, despite many legal challenges.
Stockholders of these organizations might be unhappy but taking something for nothing, that someone else produced at their own cost, needs addressing.If there were no $$$ in it for them G and FB would not be so upset. Clearly, there is value in it.

I believe you are taking too simple of a view of how this all works. I think there will be a lot of disappointed individuals and very few disappointed share holders. This reminds me of how happy everyone was that the hedge funds lost billions over GameStop. However, the real losers were not hedge funds but retired school teachers whose pensions were being managed by the hedge funds.

 

[FF]

"who in the world with an IQ over room temperature would use them for a news source?"


The bell curve suggests 1/2 the world has an IQ of under 100 , and they can vote!

 

[David Ess]

Facebook is pathetic. They should change theircname to...'Censorship R Us'.

 

[BruceK]

Site Team, thank you.

 

[RT Firefly]