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SoGood

macrumors 6502
Apr 9, 2003
456
240
Right there...that's what is wrong. People who get all their news from FB and Twitter. Get your news from a reliable source instead of these platforms known for misinformation and lies.

I don't use FB at all, and Twitter only to communicate with companies for support. There are plenty of ways to get real news.
No, only those people who only read headlines stay within FB. Click the link and one goes to the original news site page with more ads presented. That’s outside of FB.
 
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DeepIn2U

macrumors G5
May 30, 2002
12,898
6,908
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Instead of being forced to pay for this content, they just decided to stop carrying it. Seems pretty fair to me. You should be happy with this move, as they are no longer using the content, ensuring that people can only go to the primary source for it.

You think the content has great value, Facebook disagrees with you. You think the writer generates the most value, Facebook thinks the aggregator does. In a few months we will see who is right.

The aggregator is just a collection and tries (many times fails) to be the single point of contact for the content. Remember FB doesn't create the content therein, just the tools to use it.

the value IS in the writer.
Example have a look at the various documentary's of the 2008 housing then market crumble. Each their own perception and perspective views on how whom was affected, why and how, along with what was and not done to prevent or resolve the issues. Each have a unique perspective - that's the writers/producers/etc that create the content. Whether you use NetFlix (to what their version/view/perspective) vs youtube (the one that features Ben Bernacke etc) is up to you - even if you can find all in once source. Sure its valuable to the consumer to find it in 1 source - but does that mean those that created the content should not be paid for their investigative findings of the facts? No it shouldn't.

The outcome of this is only going to show that 1) FB disagrees with given $$ for the content they're linking or sourced. 2) the decision is made that FB must do this else they'd not play hard ball and stop linking). In the end I think this is only going to hurt FB, in my opinion.

We'll see what happens :D
 

wbeasley

macrumors 65816
Nov 23, 2007
1,309
1,464
Facebook the 5 year old child stomping it’s feet. ?
the LNP government are acting more like the 5 year old here.
every interview they come across as petulant children who dont understand it was their actions that caused this.

by all means find ways for content creators to be paid.

but when a platform just provides links, only content the poster put in the link or wanted people to see freely, then they just dont get it.

links in Facebook to paywalled content behave as expected. so either paywall your content or stop whinging.

this proposed law is about making money for their mates at NewsCorp.
The ones who control our media.
And who is our government.
Murdoch has been KingMaker for Australian politics by controlling the agenda in his media.

And currently he seems to have it in for Morrison as his lies over LNP staffer rape is falling apart.
everyone has a use by date with Rupert.
 

wbeasley

macrumors 65816
Nov 23, 2007
1,309
1,464
If you’re getting your news from Facebook - regardless of who published it - then that’s problem number one
Facebook at least has a variety of opinions.
much better than the force fed Murdoch approved ones.
 

Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
It's easy to say "Facebook is to blame" but remember who is forcing them down this road. They have no choice if they continue..

With BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) removed as well, people gotta start looking elsewhere for the daily dose. With many looking to Facebook for their source only, it will be interesting to see where these people flock to now.

What f this is only a basis for other countries to follow ? They have a right to make money, but while Facebook is pushing back at the government, its not like government is backing down neither after "here's a sector we have not tried yet"

If you wanna make revenue, stick ads on your site,, The governments tapping into this only because its profitable to THEM only, that's all.
 

Madonepro

macrumors 6502a
Mar 16, 2011
664
634
Gonna have to side with Facebook on this one. At the end of the day, the sad reality is that news organisations need facebook more than facebook needs them. As such, Facebook has all the leverage in this relationship, and it simply doesn’t make sense to pass a law to force facebook to pay people money to post links on their platform, then act all offended when Facebook rejects the deal and does the logical move of deciding to withdraw from this relationship.

I think Australia has sorely overestimated their own hand and the importance of their media landscape.
I don't believe your premise that the media need Facebook more than Facebook need the media. Essentially Facebook is like the Ramora, feeding and growing off it's host. The issue with media, in particular Australia, is that they don't have a huge market to compete in, and TV news, like the US, is massive. Their is poor uptake of online news, as it's either full of ad's 'news.com.au' or in the case of the only platform that could be considered to provide 'news' in a style befitting the great publications of the world 'The Australian' choose to charge large fees for subscriptions. My local newspaper, charges a month, what the The Times London, and the NYT charge a year.
Fortunately; The Australian has picked up on this story, and lowered it's subs, and increased it's discounted period.
Facebook seem to think that; I don't have a right to privacy, that my data is theirs to sell. Australia is very much a user pays society, if you want something, you have to pay for it.
 

Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
I don't believe your premise that the media need Facebook more than Facebook need the media. Essentially Facebook is like the Ramora, feeding and growing off it's host. The issue with media, in particular Australia, is that they don't have a huge market to compete in, and TV news, like the US, is massive. Their is poor uptake of online news, as it's either full of ad's 'news.com.au' or in the case of the only platform that could be considered to provide 'news' in a style befitting the great publications of the world 'The Australian' choose to charge large fees for subscriptions. My local newspaper, charges a month, what the The Times London, and the NYT charge a year.
Fortunately; The Australian has picked up on this story, and lowered it's subs, and increased it's discounted period.
Facebook seem to think that; I don't have a right to privacy, that my data is theirs to sell. Australia is very much a user pays society, if you want something, you have to pay for it.
Users still have a choice... Ya, we do have to pay more, but why must we take it? If people wanna stay riding under the TOS agreements they have themselves to blame for NOT wanting stuff cheaper a veering off course with options available to them... sorry.... Use vPN's... If you have ANY options, even if it means breaking TOS to get what you then that makes the argument limiting..

I'm ok, staying under the raider, but if there are options open, you bet i'll take it.
 

Alan Wynn

macrumors 68020
Sep 13, 2017
2,371
2,399
I don't believe your premise that the media need Facebook more than Facebook need the media.
Well, it will be easy to see if you are right. If you are, then Facebook will need to capitulate at some point. If they do not then you were wrong.
Essentially Facebook is like the Ramora, feeding and growing off it's host. The issue with media, in particular Australia, is that they don't have a huge market to compete in, and TV news, like the US, is massive.
The issue with the media is that you have many outlets that made sense when they were basically a franchise with a fixed territory. Now international news outlets as easy for people to get to as the corner news stand (or news agent for the locals) used to be, it is much harder to compete.
Their is poor uptake of online news, as it's either full of ad's 'news.com.au' or in the case of the only platform that could be considered to provide 'news' in a style befitting the great publications of the world 'The Australian' choose to charge large fees for subscriptions. My local newspaper, charges a month, what the The Times London, and the NYT charge a year.
This does not seem so surprising. It probably costs a bit more to run the New York Times, or the London Times, but probably less than twice as much. The New York Times at their “Trump Resistance” peak was at 7.5 million digital subscribers (rumors are that number has dropped post election, but we have not got great numbers yet). That is more than 25% of the population of Australia.
Fortunately; The Australian has picked up on this story, and lowered it's subs, and increased it's discounted period.
The question is can they get enough subscribers and advertisers to make their new price work.
Facebook seem to think that; I don't have a right to privacy, that my data is theirs to sell.
Facebook trade you their service for your data. You are not required to use it. If you do not think their value proposition is good, delete your account and do not use it. If enough people agree with you, they will have to change their model.
Australia is very much a user pays society, if you want something, you have to pay for it.
I guess we will see if you are right. As of now, there is not much that supports your proposition, but time will tell.
 

joiwomcow

macrumors regular
Apr 19, 2017
156
405
"They're effectively saying, on our platform, there will not be any information from organizations which employ paid journalists, which have fact checking processes, editorial policies," said Fletcher. "They're effectively saying any information that is available on our site does not come from these reliable sources."
Clearly, Fletcher is not up to speed with the Rupert Murdoch oeuvre.
Sarcasm aside: strategically, it was sensible of Murdoch to hit the US tech companies in Australia with a precedent that might apply worldwide. Murdoch is Australian news. No Australian sees a news story unless Rupert Murdoch signs off on it. The Australian government has no greater fear than Murdoch... besides the coal companies.
Google played smarter here. Appear to cave, pay the bribe. Then a few years down the line... well, maybe News Showcase isn't such a showcase any more. Like Google Wave. Or Google Plus. Not removed. Just quietly demoted. And traffic to Murdoch sites from Google steadily drops. What can you do? It's "the algorithm."
Murdoch has made a formidable enemy, and he now has their full attention. He won the battle, but he may have lost the war.
 
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abhibeckert

macrumors 6502
Jun 2, 2007
431
595
Cairns, Australia
It's like BMI and ASCAP. If I open a restaurant and have a stereo sitting where customers can get to it, they turn almost any music short of Camp Town Races and BMI/ASCAP auditors find out about I'd get nasty letters telling me to pay up. I'd remove the stereo.
This is more like if your customers listen to music on their private phone with ear buds, you had to pay royalties because they happened to be eating at your restaurant.

Also, worst of all it's not for all music. Only for music "approved" by the government and they are being very selective (and politically partisan) about who gets to be part of it.

There are many Australians who hate this proposed legislation including former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
 

lucas

macrumors regular
Jun 6, 2005
122
34
Australia
Simple, you can share a URL, there is no need to share the actual article.
No, this is precisely what the government overreach is legislating to stop. Facebook sucks, but the Australian LNP government is deluded in its policy making. They’re a bunch of corrupt nutters that exist in politics only to make themselves and their corporate mates richer, in this case uncle Rupert
 
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Fomalhaut

macrumors 68000
Oct 6, 2020
1,901
1,595
I don't really get it. Don't news outlets need people to share links to articles to gain traffic and as a result clicks which result in ad revenue? Why do Facebook have to pay someone if I decide to share a link to a news article?
This ^. I'm Australian and can't see the logic in news organizations asking for payment for *links* to their own web-sites.

I just tried posting a couple of URLs to news articles in "The Guardian" and the BBC news site (not even with Australian URLs, but I guess the geo-location kicks in).

The entire post was blocked, not just the links. I tried removing the https:// and adding spaces to corrupt the URL - still no go.

The only justification I could see for news organizations asking for payment is if a significant part of their content was published on FaceBook or Google pages. Fair enough... if the publication would detract from FB users actually navigating to the origin and reading the source article, they have a point.

But how the hell is a *link* to a news web-site damaging the new site? On the contrary, it's leading FB users to their web-site. It's also fundamental to the way the WWW works, as Sir Tim Berners Lee said.

Sounds like a money-grab from struggling media companies to me, and an excessively restrictive "screw-you" response from Facebook. Neither is good.
 

Fomalhaut

macrumors 68000
Oct 6, 2020
1,901
1,595
I’m Canadian living in Australia, and I’m actually on Facebook’s side on this one.

The Australian government is basically doing this for Rupert Murdoch and News Corp (Rupert is sort of a big deal around here), but even if they weren’t, it would still be wrong for thr government to do this. News outlets want Facebook to pay for news published on Facebook. Facebook probably has no problem with news links being posted on their site because it helps make them socially relevant.

On the other hand, news outlets benefit from the extra clicks, and ad revenue that goes with it. Some people get all their news on Facebook (and Twitter), so this seems to be a symbiotic relationship for the media and FB.

The government should stay out of it.
I personally have never considered Facebook (or Google) as a source of general news, and would never consume "posts" as a form of news.

I use Google to get links to news articles, which I then read on the original web-site. This is good for the publisher, surely?

It sounds like significant news content (from the news publisher) is being reproduced on Facebook. If this is true, the owners of the article have a claim under copyright, and maybe compensation for lost traffic due to readers never navigating to the origin site (with all its ads).

However, asking for payment for a link, without any content (or a one-line summary returned by Google search), sound ridiculous and self-defeating.

I think FB want to demonstrate that blocking links will harm the media orgs more than it will harm them. I just wish they hadn't been so heavy-handed and blocked entire posts that contain news links, and also taking down a number of sites that are informational but not main-stream news organizations.

Can't FB allow links, but prevent publication of external content?
 

Fomalhaut

macrumors 68000
Oct 6, 2020
1,901
1,595
You are being deliberately one sided with the facts here. That material shared on Facebook brings eyes and ad revenue to Facebook that far rivals the eyes and revenue that those media outlets gain. By a factor of around 10 to one. It isn’t just social relevance. It is very much a driver of their revenue.
Additionally, Facebook tracks, records and sells the data metrics you develop by clicking through to those sites. As a surrogate central body they have capacity to do this that no other individual media outlet has to achieve. They, without a shadow of a doubt are making far more money from each shared story than the news service itself is making - from material that they never had to put any energy or money into creating.
lt’s a government‘s responsibility to regulate this. Once upon a time the news agent down the street had to pay they newspaper printer for to copies of the paper they sold. Facebook should be paying the same.
What news material is shared on FB? i.e. what content? If I link to a news story, wouldn't the reader just follow the link to the source page?

Who actually "reads" the news on Facebook? I'm not a big FB user (as you can tell), but my usage is that it directs me to source articles - I don't see how this negatively affects the publisher; on the contrary, it exposes me to their work.
 

ryanwarsaw

macrumors 68030
Apr 7, 2007
2,746
2,441
FB probably makes more money than Australia these days. Given COVID Australia needs to placate it’s citizens more than FB needs the 12 people that live there posting news.
 

Fomalhaut

macrumors 68000
Oct 6, 2020
1,901
1,595
I don’t have a problem with this, it’s no different from YouTube removing copyrighted movies and music from people’s uploaded videos.
Except that FB is removing all links to the content, and blocking the entire post if it contains one.

I just tried to post a link to a news article, and I got a warning and couldn't post. FB is playing hardball, but the news companies are equating links with content, which is nuts.
 

Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
I personally have never considered Facebook (or Google) as a source of general news, and would never consume "posts" as a form of news.

I use Google to get links to news articles, which I then read on the original web-site. This is good for the publisher, surely?

It sounds like significant news content (from the news publisher) is being reproduced on Facebook. If this is true, the owners of the article have a claim under copyright, and maybe compensation for lost traffic due to readers never navigating to the origin site (with all its ads).

However, asking for payment for a link, without any content (or a one-line summary returned by Google search), sound ridiculous and self-defeating.

I think FB want to demonstrate that blocking links will harm the media orgs more than it will harm them. I just wish they hadn't been so heavy-handed and blocked entire posts that contain news links, and also taking down a number of sites that are informational but not main-stream news organizations.

Can't FB allow links, but prevent publication of external content?

only allow content from the source and block anything else? I think they try to do that, but i also reckon this blocking is the "governments response"

It's almost lik they said "We gave you enough time to scrap fake news, and clean up your act, now we have to step in with a hard rule" which appears to be working..

The only bad past is other counteries would most likely follow.I'm wonderng if the argreements will still stay the same, or would it change on a larger scale, as if all other govenments step in as well that's very close to "censorship'
 

Fomalhaut

macrumors 68000
Oct 6, 2020
1,901
1,595
News outlets have trouble generating ad revenue, because Google and Facebook dominate the ad market. So even when traffic reaches the news outlet, Google and Facebook already grabbed the majority of available ad money. In the eyes of the news outlets this is not "fair", so they want a part of the ad revenue from Google and Facebook.

It's similar to how in the pandemic restaurants have problems staying afloat, but online order/delivery services make a lot of money. Is this "fair"? Or how coffee farmers make hardly any money, but Starbucks makes a ton. Is this "fair"?

It's a political question. And Australia gave an answer.
What is the difference between me navigating to a news site directly or via Facebook? I would end up on the news site to read the article and see the same ads for the same length of time.

Why would FB or Google have "grabbed the majority of the available ad money"? They will have got some because I went via their site to find the new article, and been exposed to different ads, but the news site would have exactly the same revenue as if I had gone there directly.

Am I missing something? The argument by the news media seems weak, unless it is referring to FB publishing external content to prevent users from needing to navigate to the source. That's the only valid argument that I can see.

Another thought. Are externally linked articles opened in a iFrame (or other container) on Facebook? This would mean the surrounding ads were on FB, not the news site. I can't check now!
 
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Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
However, Google's also been in the profit center space for years... No one waits this long, only to now decide we are not making money from x platform..

If your worried about it now, you were before too.. Google purchased 'Doubleclick' in 2013 to enchance that ad-revenue space.. That's 7 years they had... why didn't they start then if money was important to them?.. Google may not be as big as they are now, but why wait ? There was obviously a clear winner then.

News outlets are "now" just realizing they are not getting as much ?
 
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Fomalhaut

macrumors 68000
Oct 6, 2020
1,901
1,595
Simple, you can share a URL, there is no need to share the actual article.
Yes, and that link takes you to the publisher's site, where you consume the content (and are exposed to their ads, earning them the revenue). What's the problem?

You didn't answer the question that was asked, which was "why should FB have to pay for sharing a link to the content" (not the content itself). Unless you meant that your answer is that FB should just be allowed to share links and not content - which I agree with.
 
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Fomalhaut

macrumors 68000
Oct 6, 2020
1,901
1,595
only allow content from the source and block anything else? I think they try to do that, but i also reckon this blocking is the "governments response"

It's almost lik they said "We gave you enough time to scrap fake news, and clean up your act, now we have to step in with a hard rule" which appears to be working..

The only bad past is other counteries would most likely follow.I'm wonderng if the argreements will still stay the same, or would it change on a larger scale, as if all other govenments step in as well that's very close to "censorship'
Eh? It's Facebook that's blocking the content (and links) on their own pages, not the Australian Government. There is no censorship going on, only self-censorship from FB.

The Australian Government, under pressure from media corporations, is asking FB to pay for links (and any content) to news sites, and FB has said no. They would rather remove the links themselves, than pay.

FB is obviously trying to make a point, and they will lose some revenue themselves from the people who do use FB as a source of news (god only knows why...people can just go the news site). They have been heavy-handed and block any posts containing links to news sites (even non-Australian ones by the look of it), and have caught up several non-news sites in their filters.
 

JKAussieSkater

macrumors 6502
Mar 13, 2009
263
392
Tokyo, Japan
If you’re getting your news from Facebook - regardless of who published it - then that’s problem number one

You’re grossly misunderstanding the repercussions of this proposed law in Australia. The law is arbitrarily demanding Google and Facebook (and others) to pay for news websites to exist.
 

MBAir2010

macrumors 603
May 30, 2018
6,433
5,922
there
Good
maybe a cartoonist can publish their comics on some other platform online besides facebook
downunder. facebook’s groups will not accept any cartoons drawn by any facebook member, and should be shut down for this action.
 
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