Facebook Blocks All News Sharing on Its Platforms in Australia

[08380728]

FaceBook would likely have significant private, legal and statistical information not in the public domain that they use to define their response. On the other side of course, the media moguls are at work making every effort to discredit Facebook for their position and therefore their view is going to be heavily biased in their favour.

Seems unreasonable for people here to be taking sides on this without considering there’s much information they do not have access to.

It’s probably no big loss to FaceBook. They have proven to be very adaptive and inventive, they’ll surely define a new revenue stream they probably already have something in the works. In their favour they can create and deploy faster than any government legislative process.

 

[Fomalhaut]

... ironically this social media voice, has shown more than anything else how hostile, mean, nasty, disrespectful and destructive people are. Were regular people always like that or is it that social media represents the voices of only the s[-]!t headz in society?

This is a question I often ask myself too.

The huge downside of social media is that it has given a platform to voice opinions to a potentially huge audience that would have previously had a far smaller group of people either ignore, laugh at, or punch you.

It certainly doesn't bring out the best in people, that's for sure.

 

[Romeo_Nightfall]

Just some more background on this.
Facebook is not just blocking commercial news sites.
They are blocking Emergency Information sites, COVID information sites, Health Department information sites, some University sites and a number of small businesses.
They are NOT blocking Anti-vaxxer sites and other conspiracy news sites. If FB gets it way, it will not feed any real news, and FB users will only get conspiracy and other fake news.

They are being Absolute B@st@rds about this.

The problem for Facebook is that Australia is in negotiation with India regarding controlling FB (suddenly the potential audience has gone from 30 million to 1 anna bit Billion), and will be bringing the whole kerfuffle up with the G7 in Ireland later this year.

Google, after flapping its hands in the air a bit, has started doing deals with various news outlets, to everybody's satisfaction. Part of this was the sudden surge in coverage that Bing and Duckduckgo were getting in the mainstream media (TV, online and print).

Basically, Australians don't really like our government, but it is OUR government, and if you try to bully it, we will kick you in your digital goolies until you roll over and give up.

Seems you are a b....

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Sure. God forbid songwriters get paid from the playing of their compositions. Why, the next thing they'll want is to get paid for their recordings.

Do you think they should be paid for me NOT using their music? I just stated I'd remove the stereo. I'm not advocating IP theft, I'm saying I wouldn't see the value prop in that situation so I wouldn't be a customer. I don't feel entitled to their music for free, they shouldn't feel entitled to me paying for something I don't want.

Someone else will buy it, or they won't, that's how the market works.

 

[Abazigal]

This is a question I often ask myself too.

The huge downside of social media is that it has given a platform to voice opinions to a potentially huge audience that would have previously had a far smaller group of people either ignore, laugh at, or punch you.

It certainly doesn't bring out the best in people, that's for sure.

Facebook, much like the internet, is simply a reflection of society, so what you see online is simply an amplification of the best and the worst that we humanity have to offer.

 

[shapesinaframe]

If you’re interested in any of the details of what Facebook are saying no to, TechCrunch did a summary of a draft of the code last year:

Australia now has a template for forcing Facebook and Google to pay for news | TechCrunch

Australia is closing in on a legally binding framework to force adtech giants Facebook and Google pay media companies for monetizing their news content

techcrunch.com

Some choice quotes:

Another interesting aspect of the proposal would require the platforms to give news media businesses around a month (28 days’) notice of algorithm changes that are “likely to materially affect” referral traffic to news and/or the ranking of news behind paywalls; and also for “substantial” changes to the display and presentation of news, and advertising directly associated with news.

Another notable requirement is for platforms to give news media businesses “clear information” about the data they collect via users’ interactions with news content on their platforms — such as how long people spend on an article; how many articles they consume in a certain time period; and other data about user engagement with news across platform services.

One potentially problematic element of Australia’s approach with this news ad revenue share is that it does not appear to tackle Facebook’s and Google’s abusive model of surveillance capitalism — which remains under regulatory scrutiny in Europe — but seems set to further embed the media with data-mining business models that work by stripping consumers of their privacy to target them with behavioral ads.

you can review the full details of the code here:

https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/draft-news-media-bargaining-code

 

[bluecoast]

I’d say that’s generally right for some segments of American.

if I don’t like what a company is doing, it’s pretty rare that I have to interact with that company. If I don’t like what the government is doing, there’s really no escape, especially from the federal government.

To be fair, the situation is more nuanced in the uk (where I am) ie we certainly don’t implicitly trust the government. I think though European levels of interventions in the market, regulation etc generally tend to be pretty high.

 

[Steeley]

The Murdoch Press chucking a big tanty this morning:

https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/lnqlf6

 

[shapesinaframe]

The Murdoch Press chucking a big tanty this morning:

https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/lnqlf6

The TV stations are playing victim (and nobody in the comments is buying it)

 

[shapesinaframe]

The Murdoch Press chucking a big tanty this morning:

https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/lnqlf6

 

[AutomaticApple]

Australia is in trouble...

 

[Tech198]

The TV stations are playing victim (and nobody in the comments is buying it)

Its almost like now we're saying "Facebook MUST stay" Sorry, hat destroys freedom doesn't it... FB can do what it wants, even it's a bad decision..

We "as Austrians" just happen to take it a bit rough. The government would rather get media outlets and others payed, and FB didn't wanna go through with it.

I always thougt if the government can come up with it, they should also pay for .. don't push this in the other direction, because it could go either way.. And it has......The wrong way

Now the govenments getting what they just deserved... Angry, because they wanted it to succeed.

 

[shapesinaframe]

Rupert wants his monopoly on media advertising revenue back and Scotty needs to give it to him before election time rolls around or he’s screwed.

Unfortunately for Scotty, Facebook can afford to lose Australian news content but the news media can’t afford to lose Facebook.

Frydenberg Changes Zoom Background To Bowser's Castle To Intimidate Zuckerberg

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www.betootaadvocate.com

 

[Fomalhaut]

Australia is in trouble...
View attachment 1733407

I had to check the reference to Bing

Google has reached a compromise in Australia. Rather than giving in to the (frankly insane) idea that returned search result links should be considered "news content", they are rolling out "Google News Showcase" in Australia that will pay publishers to curate news content on the Google platform...not entirely sure whether this allows the published content to appear in other Google services (which ones would apply?), but it seems have been acceptable to the publishers.

Google has avoided setting a precedent of categorizing search results as anything other than a free referral service to external content.

I'm not sure if Facebook has anything similar, apart from the pages that have been created by the actual news organizations themselves, of course. It appears the argument from news organizations is that FB should pay them for FB's free hosting of the publisher's own content. In the real world, you pay a hosting service for their service, not the other way round. If the publishers are worried about people only reading their content on FB, rather than the publisher's own site, then they should just stop publishing it on FB; Facebook has just pro-actively solved the problem for them

 

[Fomalhaut]

5 seconds after writing my last post I saw this on The Guardian's news page: The Government has been advised by Facebook that it intends to restore Australian news pages in the coming days.

hmmm...I wonder what happened? Did FB cave-in, or has a deal been reached? Interesting to see what happens

 

[shapesinaframe]

5 seconds after writing my last post I saw this on The Guardian's news page: The Government has been advised by Facebook that it intends to restore Australian news pages in the coming days.

hmmm...I wonder what happened? Did FB cave-in, or has a deal been reached? Interesting to see what happens

? the government caved, changed the parts of the code that FB took issue with and begged FB to turn the news back on so Rupert won’t destroy them in the next elections media coverage.

 

[Romeo_Nightfall]

5 seconds after writing my last post I saw this on The Guardian's news page: The Government has been advised by Facebook that it intends to restore Australian news pages in the coming days.

hmmm...I wonder what happened? Did FB cave-in, or has a deal been reached? Interesting to see what happens

They said they got a deal with government.

 

[return2sendai]

Is there no end to the horror show that is Facebook? Plots of the Amazon rainforest, reserved for its indigenous peoples, are now being openly sold via Facebook Marketplace ads. Pure evil.

Amazon rainforest plots sold via Facebook Marketplace ads

Protected land reserved for Brazil's indigenous communities is being traded on the social network.

www.bbc.com

 

[08380728]

Did FB cave-in, or has a deal been reached?

Highly doubt FB caved, more like they wielded their power so that everyone (govt, media et al) sh@.t themselves and cried like babies and then FB gave them some terms to meet for FB to restore services, they puffed out their chests saying how FB backed down...Rupert Murdoch bunch of faggots.

 

[08380728]

Facebook is not just blocking commercial news sites.
They are blocking Emergency Information sites, COVID information sites, Health Department information sites, some University sites and a number of small businesses.

What’s the problem, that platform wasn’t intended to host those services.

It’s like people coming on to forums like this asking specific technical questions about a Tesla car instead of calling Tesla and asking them. They are the manufacturer and the source to provide the support required, not some random computer forum or in this case a platform aimed at staying in contact with friends and family and sharing photos of their pathetic lives.

You’d have to be off your head to use FB to access Australian Emergency information sites, come on, go to the source the Govt have extensive websites for all these services.

 

[08380728]

Is there no end to the horror show that is Facebook? Plots of the Amazon rainforest, reserved for its indigenous peoples, are now being openly sold via Facebook Marketplace ads. Pure evil.

Hahah, so funny, do they sell plots of land on the moon too?