Facebook cuts Australia's access to news in long running dispute over media laws

[Kathandira]

Why do I have a feeling a lot of things happening with Facebook is going to end up costing the users.

I can see a few forms of change. One being that FB will have a FB+ option where you can pay to post links. Or that we will simply be charged for usage so FB can pay other content providers for shared content. A CFO will always look for ways to shifts costs down to the customer, rather than the company eating it.

[Elegiac]

Why do I have a feeling a lot of things happening with Facebook is going to end up costing the users.

I can see a few forms of change. One being that FB will have a FB+ option where you can pay to post links. Or that we will simply be charged for usage so FB can pay other content providers for shared content. A CFO will always look for ways to shifts costs down to the customer, rather than the company eating it.

Or we can, like... stop using Facebook. Lol.

[Elegiac]

Facebook’s customer isn’t the users.

Yep. Your data is the product, the customers are advertisers.

[Felya]

Facebook’s customer isn’t the users. The users are what FB is selling. Their personal data and access to them for advertising.

We are the product...

[Nellise]

Maybe try learning a thing or two about Australian politics before trying to use this to try and score points, sweaty.

Is there some reason you keep calling people "sweaty"? Is this a new internet insult term?

[Elegiac]

Is there some reason you keep calling people "sweaty"? Is this a new internet insult term?

Misspelling of 'sweetie' from ye old Tumblr days back when you could see titties on that website. It's ancient in internet terms.

[Felya]

Is there some reason you keep calling people "sweaty"? Is this a new internet insult term?

I think they meant sweetie... although, sweaty is funnier...

[Vercincor]

Just an anecdote, but it's amazing how many of my friends have been posting how they've been happier and less anxious since Facebook cut all news out of their feeds.

[Thereturn]

60% of modern traffic comes from facebook and other social media. News outlets used their media for years to reach a broad public and have their articles shared giving them more reach than they ever had.

And now they want to bite the hand that fed them trough the years. ‘Hey besides making our content wildly populair making us traffic, how about you pay for that service aswell?’. Fuck em and their pansy ass MOONhyped anti-tech narrative.

[Edge-]

And now they want to bite the hand that fed them trough the years.

Because it was a garbage deal to begin with, and the prevalence of social media sharing of articles has led to a TON of absolutely garbage journalism. They don't make any money when thousands of folks just mindlessly share some OUTRAGEOUS article that everyone comments on and reads the summary of but doesn't actually click so the site doesn't gain any actual benefit. Just the social media company.

[Thereturn]

Because it was a garbage deal to begin with, and the prevalence of social media sharing of articles has led to a TON of absolutely garbage journalism. They don't make any money when thousands of folks just mindlessly share some OUTRAGEOUS article that everyone comments on and reads the summary of but doesn't actually click so the site doesn't gain any actual benefit. Just the social media company.

And they will make even less if facebook doesnt share. Its like charging the newspaper kiosk for selling your newspapers. And then blaming the kiosk if it stops selling your papers for you. If anything facebook should be charging them.

[Edge-]

And they will make even less if facebook doesnt share. Its like charging the newspaper kiosk for selling your newspapers. And then blaming the kiosk if it stops selling your papers for you. If anything facebook should be charging them.

Except the newspaper kiosk is giving free summaries of your work to every passerby who wants to know, earning money periodically for sharing work that they did not do themselves.

This is some weird pro-corporatism stuff dude, giving companies that kind of power is how the sci-fi futures with corporations having standing armies and engaging in planetary takeovers happens, yo. Facebook ain't gonna go bankrupt because it has to pay a bit for the news it profits off of.

[Thereturn]

Except the newspaper kiosk is giving free summaries of your work to every passerby who wants to know, earning money periodically for sharing work that they did not do themselves.

This is some weird pro-corporatism stuff dude, giving companies that kind of power is how the sci-fi futures with corporations having standing armies and engaging in planetary takeovers happens, yo. Facebook ain't gonna go bankrupt because it has to pay a bit for the news it profits off of.

Ofcourse the kiosk does. It has all the papers stalled out for passerby’s to scan the headlines. And people will stand in front of em and discuss the headlines. And some will leave it at that and some will buy the actual paper.

Oh sod off with pro corporatism. This is just some anti corporate hypeTrain these politicians are trying to ride and they are failing miserably trying to do so. Its unfair, even if it is facebook.

[Twdft]

Because it was a garbage deal to begin with, and the prevalence of social media sharing of articles has led to a TON of absolutely garbage journalism. They don't make any money when thousands of folks just mindlessly share some OUTRAGEOUS article that everyone comments on and reads the summary of but doesn't actually click so the site doesn't gain any actual benefit. Just the social media company.

Publishers can simply edit their robots.txt to disallow search engines and facebook.

The audacity to put content free to read for everyone out on the internet but demand payment from google/facebook to read it is mind boggling. I too think googles near monopoly is problematic, but here I am on their side. Put up a paywall if you want.

[Edge-]

The audacity to put content free to read for everyone out on the internet but demand payment from google/facebook to read it is mind boggling. I too think googles near monopoly is problematic, but here I am on their side. Put up a paywall if you want.

They're demanding revenue for Google/Facebook creating summaries that are used and shared on their platforms, using the original work without payment. And given that we know a TON of those shares never result in clicks, but do result in tons more shares and angry comments which drive revenue for FB or show more suggested sites for Google (suggested via ads) without the company ever actually getting those clicks so it can't show ads to generate revenue.

The content is "free", though in many instances it's a paywalled site, but it's ad-supported. If you're not going to the site and just outrage-sharing articles, the site doesn't benefit from the work they put in. Just internet companies like Google and FB.

See: Twitter's warning labels about reading an article before sharing it - https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/25/2...-globally-soon

Which is precisely what I'm talking about.

[Twdft]

Might be only in Germany, but google news shows only the headline and if you want to read it click through. Google news has no ads itself.

And as I said, just edit your robots.txt and disallow google/facebook. You can disallow them specifically if you want to give everyone else free access to your stories.

[WintersLegion]

Might be only in Germany, but google news shows only the headline and if you want to read it click through. Google news has no ads itself.

And as I said, just edit your robots.txt and disallow google/facebook. You can disallow them specifically if you want to give everyone else free access to your stories.

I'm in America and I see the same thing. Now if I google a specific new topic it gives the headline and the first sentence but still no summary.

[Zan15]

60% of modern traffic comes from facebook and other social media. News outlets used their media for years to reach a broad public and have their articles shared giving them more reach than they ever had.

And now they want to bite the hand that fed them trough the years. ‘Hey besides making our content wildly populair making us traffic, how about you pay for that service aswell?’. Fuck em and their pansy ass MOONhyped anti-tech narrative.

Used to be a good deal but now its not.

you'd get more traffic if they came to your paper directly looking for news stories then hoping your story hits a rank high enough on facebook to get notice.

Hardly anyone goes direct anymore except for a few publications

[turboether]

The Murdoch media empire own 70% of news outlets in Australia. Not only do they have a media monopoly, they actively buy local news organizations and publications and subsequently shutter them to not only minimise competition but to starve areas of local news. This is a slapping match between monopolistic giants of old and new media, and the crony LNP are just dancing by old media's fiddle.

[Gaidax]

I think it's one bad decision for Australian government.

I and not a huge Facebook fan and Google could use being slapped a notch, but I can totally see their point.

I, for one, don't see what's so terrible about search engine pointing to news sources or social media users posting links to said news sources. They don't rip whole articles out and plaster them in search engine - you get a snippet and a link. It is also a free exposure for these news sources as well.

I totally don't think that paywalling news even more is the way forward. Imagine paywalling news search results - nice.

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P.S. And don't tell me "Bing agreed to this" - M$ is desperate to make Bing relevant for years, they agree to just about everything to make it so, including Chinese censorship bullshit, which is why it's not blocked there. The true and righteous defenders of fairness these ones.