Facebook has banned the entire world from getting Australian news content.

Tbh it was well played by News Corp who've led the charge. And own the Australian government.

Pressure is off Google because nobody else has any power.

 

"Everybody's Wrong About the Facebook/Murdoch Standoff in Australia":

https://reason.com/2021/02/18/everybodys-wrong-about-the-facebook-murdoch-standoff-in-australia/

 

good summary. I was very confused what this was about


but...

FB banned content that isn’t related to Murdoch. That’s heavy handed and powerful.

FB does make a lot of money off ads revenue - 4% is still something. They are using someone else content to attract views.

And as an aside, FB uses human data (all of us) to increase profit. We all should get an option to be used or to be paid for using our data.

 

Imo it's fb that's playing with fire. you have a cash cow that's been grazing for free all this time, but the land owners now want to erect fences and make cows pay to enter. do you negotiate and pay to enter a few fields (you don't need every field) and keep producing milk, or do you force your cash cow to go on a hunger strike and potentially damage it's health? Fb is looking at this the wrong way. All these fences are helping big tech build an even bigger moat, making it harder for new portal/social media sites to compete due to pay to link requirements. Effecting the ban before the law has come online just comes across as petty/vindictive.

 

It's not even a ban. They taken down content to review. How do people expect any business to last if they take an gungho attidude to expenses? It'd be like a business saying they don't care what the costs are just bill me later.

 

Australia has it right. Hopefully the rest of the world catches on.

 

Facebook doesn't like Sensational News

 

Other countries may follow.


"On Thursday, Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault blasted Facebook for its news block in Australia. "I must condemn what Facebook is doing," Guilbeault said in a news conference. "I think what Facebook is doing in Australia is highly irresponsible and compromises the safety of many Australian people."

Guilbeault said his country would look to adopt the Australian approach as it begins the process of drawing up its own content legislation in the coming months."

 

I actually think the murdoch poison angle is kind of irrelevant here.

Google threatened to withdraw from Australia, Microsoft said - sure, here's Bing & Edge - Australia, we'll do whatever you need -> Google changed its mind

Facebook - nobody gives a **** if they have news on it or not. It can still exist to sell stupid ads and spread poison to morons with or without news.

It is kidn of funny that they can shut this off whenever they want. For years, Mark and Sheryl throw up their hands and pretend like they can't control anything at all that happens on their site. In reality, they can shut this off whenever they want, including the QAnon spew that people like @Os Trigonum and @basso mainline into their boomer skulls - they just would rather keep making money.

I don't see good things happenign for FB though on a regulatory front, Microsoft GC was talking about the 5 stages of Antitrust grief the other day on the radio, they are still in denial.

 

Damn, that's actually a pretty good meme for a boomer.

 

Who's that?

Black and white is not my favorite IG filter but he's pulling it off.

 

He's a LOF

 

You really believe this? If you post a link to an Australian news article on Clutchfans, you think Clutch should have to pay that Australian media site? That's what this is.

It's completely nonsensical. It used to be that companies LIKED links to their articles being shared as it brought people to their site. That's why basically every news article anywhere has a share button. In Australia, however, the media wants people to pay them to share links to their sites. Facebook did absolutely the right thing here. Google got shaken down.

 

i get my news from The Babylon Bee.

 

I hear people that follow that bottom of the barrel stuff **** these cousins . Can u confirm

 

Nah. Google is a little bit further along the "learning to live with regulators" path than FB who still think they're untouchable (note how once founders leave, companies get more accommodating see MSFT)

The old "free we just want the clicks" model has, in conjunction with other factors, devastated the news business (and there's a public interest imo in having a robust and not consolidated news industry IMO) - I mean obviously **** Rupert Murdoch to hell but I don't blame them for wanting to try something different rather keep ceding to the gatekeepers.

And to answer your hypothetical - I don't think cf.net has the market power to make it that useful of a comparison. A lot of AT/competition law is like this, basically, where your status makes formerly ok actions not ok.

 

But Google DID cede to the gatekeepers. Murdoch got what he wanted - Google will now publish their results but not all the little publishers, which are now completely screwed out of both the potential exposure and the ad revenues. And every country's big publishers now know they can both get free money AND eliminate their competition by pushing similar policies in their countries. Google's decision was terrible for everyone except Murdoch.

 

So, in order to prevent big news conglomerate from pushing out smaller outlets, regulator need to let many times larger Galactus internet behemoth continue to set the rules arbitrarily and siphon everyone's revenue?

That doesn't sound like an ideal set of affairs either.

Listen I think regulatory hammers should smash both Facebook and News corp into pieces on both AT and Comms grounds.. I think it's an arguable point that facebook contributes absolutely no net social value whatsoever. Neither does a particular sort of news, like from News Corp. I guess it's that I'd break facebook up first because it's bigger and more dangerous.