Facebook to restrict Australians from sharing or viewing news content

Forums › Social networks, social media and tools › Facebook to restrict Australians from sharing or viewing news content

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#2659286 18-Feb-2021 22:31

richms:
Another own goal by Aussie propping up that old man and his crumbling media monopoly. I dont see this affecting Facebook too much and its a shame that aussies will not be able to see overseas media on there as it would just show how valuable the free exposure on there is when people would have just started to share overseas news media instead.

I don't see this affecting Aussie too much either once the dust settles. If the Aussies don't blink, and I hope they don't, the risk to Facebook is that they will ultimately lose more in advertising revenue than the royalties they are currently determined to avoid.

Facebook have been a law unto themselves for too long. The US won't stand up to them, so let's hope the rest of the world will start fronting up. Nice one Aussie.

eracode

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#2659305 19-Feb-2021 04:23

I not sure which I distrust more, Facebook or Australia. They deserve each other.

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Senecio

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#2659308 19-Feb-2021 07:00

I don’t understand the worldwide backlash against Facebook on this occasion. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of Facebook, I despise them. However in this case the Australian government have drafted an appalling piece of legislation and left the choice to the big tech companies on how they comply.

Facebook have made their choice and everyone appears to have ignored the role the AU government have played.

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#2659323 19-Feb-2021 08:09

Senecio: I don’t understand the worldwide backlash against Facebook on this occasion. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of Facebook, I despise them. However in this case the Australian government have drafted an appalling piece of legislation and left the choice to the big tech companies on how they comply.

Facebook have made their choice and everyone appears to have ignored the role the AU government have played.

Yup I feel the same way actually. Well, I am actually torn on the matter, because I think these big tech companies are so integral to a lot of peoples lives now, that threatning to take away "Google" from a group of people is almost an abuse of your market position. I do these Big tech has abused it's position for their own ends, in appalling ways (primaily, the use of private information in ways the average end user can't or doesn't understand), and now neutering them is very difficult.

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#2659342 19-Feb-2021 08:24

dafman:
richms:
Another own goal by Aussie propping up that old man and his crumbling media monopoly. I dont see this affecting Facebook too much and its a shame that aussies will not be able to see overseas media on there as it would just show how valuable the free exposure on there is when people would have just started to share overseas news media instead.

I don't see this affecting Aussie too much either once the dust settles. If the Aussies don't blink, and I hope they don't, the risk to Facebook is that they will ultimately lose more in advertising revenue than the royalties they are currently determined to avoid.

Facebook have been a law unto themselves for too long. The US won't stand up to them, so let's hope the rest of the world will start fronting up. Nice one Aussie.

Hopefully the world can rid of Facebook.

BlueOwl

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#2659397 19-Feb-2021 08:59

Senecio: I don’t understand the worldwide backlash against Facebook on this occasion. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of Facebook, I despise them. However in this case the Australian government have drafted an appalling piece of legislation and left the choice to the big tech companies on how they comply.

Facebook have made their choice and everyone appears to have ignored the role the AU government have played.

Exactly. And the point that the Australian news media got the government to write legislation favouring themselves really smells of corruption to me.

And I see on Stuff this morning that Scott Morrison is now accusing Facebook of "bullying" the nation of Australia, and wants other countries to join their petty squabble with the social media giant. And he wrote this in a Facebook post, of all places.

dafman

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#2659415 19-Feb-2021 09:17

Senecio: I don’t understand the worldwide backlash against Facebook on this occasion. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of Facebook, I despise them. However in this case the Australian government have drafted an appalling piece of legislation and left the choice to the big tech companies on how they comply.

Facebook have made their choice and everyone appears to have ignored the role the AU government have played.

I agree the legislation is ham-fisted. I think taxing Facebook (and Google) on their Australian revenue would have been the better approach. That said, I applaud the Aussies on being one of the first government's to tell Facebook that they can't to come into a sovereign country and reap significant revenue without contributing something back.

And I fully support Facebook's right to withdraw access to news links if they want to. They are a private company and free to opt out if they don't like the new environment.

But I think (hope) that this stand will turn out to be an own goal if the Aussie's remain firm and that Facebook will ultimately back down (as did Google). To date, Facebook have operated globally to the beat of their own drum under the belief that they set the rules for how they will make revenue around the world without any constraint. Well now the globe is beginning to wake up.

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dafman

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#2659488 19-Feb-2021 09:52

BlueOwl:

And I see on Stuff this morning that Scott Morrison is now accusing Facebook of "bullying" the nation of Australia.

While I'm firmly in Aussie's camp on this one, I agree Scott Morrison is acting like a complete kn*b in his response.

Blurtie

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#2659489 19-Feb-2021 09:54

freitasm:

dafman: First World problem (FFS)!

Are we now so stupid as a society we are unable to access our news outside of Facebook?

I've seen instructions to access a news website described as "Open browser, go to Google, type news site name, click first result".

Yes, people can be a bit dumb.

Meanwhile, it looks like Google will be the big winner here with FB's decision... No doubt that that first result will probably be an ad...

debo

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#2659505 19-Feb-2021 10:22

Blurtie:
Meanwhile, it looks like Google will be the big winner here with FB's decision... No doubt that that first result will probably be an ad...

Am I missing something? When I go to news.google.com I do not get any ads. All I get are headlines with links to the full news stories. Where are all these adverts that Google are stealing from the news corporations?

eracode

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#2659511 19-Feb-2021 10:43

BlueOwl:

And I see on Stuff this morning that Scott Morrison is now accusing Facebook of "bullying" the nation of Australia, ...

The words pot, kettle and black come to mind

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tehgerbil

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#2659550 19-Feb-2021 12:00

So if I get this straight right:

Australian politicians have told a private company (company A) that if they want to have a link to a another private company's (company B) website on their website they must pay (company B)?

So the government doesn't get revenue from either company, but company A is now forced to give millions to company B?

Why is this a law? Like.. There's no benefit to the Australian public here, or am I missing something here?

Edit: just to add here, News Corp - (Company B) just announced 261 million dollars in profit (after taxes etc).

Oblivian

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#2659556 19-Feb-2021 12:15

tehgerbil: There's no benefit to the Australian public here, or am I missing something here?

Edit: just to add here, News Corp - (Company B) just announced 261 million dollars in profit (after taxes etc).

Check who the major stakeholder is for SBS and ABC australia for a somewhat vested interest..

dafman

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#2659569 19-Feb-2021 12:49

tehgerbil:

So if I get this straight right:

So the government doesn't get revenue from either company, but company A is now forced to give millions to company B?

Correction: Company A has not been not forced to give millions to Company B. They have elected to stop sharing Company's B intellectual property (journalism) on their platform and, as a consequence, they don't have to pay anything.

Meanwhile, a third company, Company C (aka Google) have decided they are happy to pay Company B for sharing Company B's intellectual property on their platform because it is financially advantageous to both companies.

debo

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#2659671 19-Feb-2021 13:37

dafman:
tehgerbil:

So if I get this straight right:

So the government doesn't get revenue from either company, but company A is now forced to give millions to company B?

Correction: Company A has not been not forced to give millions to Company B. They have elected to stop sharing Company's B intellectual property (journalism) on their platform and, as a consequence, they don't have to pay anything.

Meanwhile, a third company, Company C (aka Google) have decided they are happy to pay Company B for sharing Company B's intellectual property on their platform because it is financially advantageous to both companies.

I don't do face book so I'm in the dark here. Does Facebook actually share the whole news story (take intellectual property for free) or does it just display a link to the story (the intellectual property stays on the news corporation own website).

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