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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#2659672 19-Feb-2021 13:39

What I find ridiculous about this whole thing is. News corporations willingly upload their content to Facebook and other media sites. They do this to attract more people to their own sites and in turn create more revenue. So in return for that, the social media site is required to pay the news provider a fee for the privilege of providing them with a platform to reach more people and create more revenue.

So that’s like me providing a service to a client, then me paying them?

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#2659685 19-Feb-2021 13:44

Embarrassed to say I didn't factor in Intellectual Property, thank you dafman for 100% correcting me.

I mean it makes more sense, but I still struggle to see how this isn't a bit of a cash grab with little benefit to the consumers.

I can see why Google dropped their dacks so quickly, their business model relies on rehosting the news articles when you click to their page through with their very monopolistic AMP scheme which does rob the website of impressions I believe.

But Facebook has no such rehosting scheme, they merely host a link 99% of the time?

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#2659796 19-Feb-2021 14:07

Facebook is in the right here, and I for one am happy that someone is sticking it to the Murdoch empire, and I don't even use Facebook.

The issue is of course that they've done it in a really silly way, inadvertently giving Aussie news outlets ammunition. But at the end of the day, I hope FB sticks to its guns. In fact, it has to, or Murdoch will lobby for the same deal in the US which is going to be way more costly and way more problematic.

As to Murdoch's outlets claiming that by implementing the ban, Facebook is kicking real news off the platform - now that's pretty ironic.

Hello, Ground!

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#2659867 19-Feb-2021 15:13

debo:

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).

They share the title, image from the article that they determine and add tracking code to the link to identify where it comes in from, along with a little bit of the post when the site provides that.

That is how the web works. If companies do not want deep linking to articles on their site, there are plenty of ways to block that from happening, but they know that would cost them views so dont do that.

This is not them pulling paywalled articles and showing them for free or similar, its just people putting a link on their page and letting their pages viewers see that heading, article snippet if appropriate.

Fundamental basic of web since whenever. That is why this is a dangerous stupid law. They are just trying to get cash for a dying Aussie industry out of a sucessful overseas industry. Australia likes to act like europe, not invented here so its bad and must be regulated.

Richard rich.ms

jmosen

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#2659959 19-Feb-2021 19:15

Given that this is Geekzone and I would expect most here understand the importance of a free, open Internet and the principles that underpin that, I'm surprised this topic is as contentious here as it is.

I detest Facebook and got off it some years back, only to have to come crawling back in some minor form when I needed to manage coms for a start-up I was then working for. But this time, they need to stand for an important principle even though their execution was typically bungling and lousy. I'm not deluded, I know they're doing what they're doing because if Australia gets away with it, the impact on their bottom line could be significant, nevertheless the principle is really important.

Once you start enshrining in law that an entity has to pay for the right to offer a link to another site, you break the Internet.

Where does this end once the Australian Government has set this precedent? If I write a blog post containing information that's highly sought after by my audience and considered high quality, can I now demand a fee every time another website links to that post? Or does that privilege only extend to Murdoch and his mates?

Surely if I want to put monetary value on content, I can put it behind a paywall. Then the first few lines can show up on Facebook as a preview, and hopefully some punters will click through, subscribe, and read the whole thing.

As has been demonstrated today by the tech-illiterate coverage this issue has been getting, most journalists and politicians don't understand the issues. The media see a golden goose. Politicians have been lobbied by media interests about how impoverished they are. Facebook makes it all too easy through their obnoxious behaviour to be cast as the enemy. They avoid paying their fair share of taxes and have done incalculable social damage.

What about RSS readers? The only reason they're not in the gun with this legislation is that the people pushing this dangerous idea have no clue what an RSS reader is. It's no different from Facebook. You sometimes have to pay for an RSS reader and/or the aggregator it connects to. You get previews of the article. Don't tell anyone, but some of them even extract full text.

If any website or product is republishing IP in full, then that's copyright infringement as far as I'm concerned and should be dealt with. This is where the Google issues are a bit more complex. But unless we want to see what has made the Internet eroded over time, we have to side with Facebook on this one, nauseating though that is.

Jonathan

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#2659964 19-Feb-2021 19:35

jmosen:
Given that this is Geekzone and I would expect most here understand the importance of a free, open Internet and the principles that underpin that, I'm surprised this topic is as contentious here as it... ...

Personally, I'm siding with the Aussie Govt and their right to set sovereign law for companies that operate within their country. Even if that law is not good law.

That said, you've offered up a well-reasoned and compelling counter argument.

It will be fascinating to see how this pans out.

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#2659980 19-Feb-2021 20:40

No doubt, every sovereign nation can pass whatever laws it likes. But the law doesn't compel Facebook to offer news on its platform, it only compels Facebook to pay for it if it wants to use it. Under these terms, it doesn't, so it isn't.

Jonathan

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#2660022 20-Feb-2021 02:38

jmosen:
Given that this is Geekzone and I would expect most here understand the importance of a free, open Internet and the principles that underpin that, I'm surprised this topic is as contentious here as it is.

Given the highly parasitic nature of the big tech companies I think it is a reasonable question whether an entirely free and open internet is actually beneficial to society. Big tech loves to talk about principles that are beneficial to it's interests while ignoring any that are at all inconvenient. If tech companies want to talk about principles they need to behave in a principled way.

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#2660071 20-Feb-2021 12:04

jmosen:
No doubt, every sovereign nation can pass whatever laws it likes. But the law doesn't compel Facebook to offer news on its platform, it only compels Facebook to pay for it if it wants to use it. Under these terms, it doesn't, so it isn't.

Totally agree. Hard to see what all the fuss has been about in the first place.

(ah, I now remember. Facebook is a basic essential, like food and shelter. Multitudes will likely die in an information vacuum or fall prey to end-of-world cults now that Facebook have opted to no longer link news sites in Aus).

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#2660077 20-Feb-2021 13:10

Handle9:
jmosen:
Given that this is Geekzone and I would expect most here understand the importance of a free, open Internet and the principles that underpin that, I'm surprised this topic is as contentious here as it is.

Given the highly parasitic nature of the big tech companies I think it is a reasonable question whether an entirely free and open internet is actually beneficial to society. Big tech loves to talk about principles that are beneficial to it's interests while ignoring any that are at all inconvenient. If tech companies want to talk about principles they need to behave in a principled way.

See, that's the kind of whataboutism that doesn't really help.

Is big tech innocent? Is Facebook free of problems? Of course not, and the Aussie government could've chosen to tackle any of those issues. Introduce European-level privacy protection. Demand source verification. Add fines for fake news. Add bullying protections. There's plenty they could've done. Instead, they focused on securing a new revenue stream for the Murdochs, at the risk of endangering the basic principles of Internet use.

Hello, Ground!

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#2660136 20-Feb-2021 17:19

I don't think that fear mongering about breaking the internet is at all useful either. This particular legislation is about commercial arrangements between billionaires.

There's nothing inherently virtuous about the way the internet currently works. It's a construct and as such subject to change. More regulation is coming and it'll be messy and inherently flawed. That's the way things work, there is a problem, an over reaction and then there will be equilibrium.

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#2660193 20-Feb-2021 19:59

Kookoo

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#2660367 21-Feb-2021 00:06

dafman:

Way to miss the point. As I mentioned above, the Aussie government isn't sparring with FB over privacy of their citizens. The battle it chose is for a revenue stream for Murdoch empire. Conflating the two issues means she either doesn't understand what she's talking about (quite likely, given she's a professor emeritus), or is being disingenuous.

Hello, Ground!

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#2660437 21-Feb-2021 11:42

Kookoo:
Way to miss the point. As I mentioned above, the Aussie government isn't sparring with FB over privacy of their citizens. The battle it chose is for a revenue stream for Murdoch empire. Conflating the two issues means she either doesn't understand what she's talking about (quite likely, given she's a professor emeritus), or is being disingenuous.

Shoshana Zuboff is the author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, so is well versed in understanding big tech. I think she is using the Aussie situation as opportunity to highlight the power and pervasiveness of big tech, but you are right to correctly point out current issue is not privacy.

Is the new Australian law good law? No.

Should they have tackled the wider issue of privacy rights for their citizens? Yes.

Even a tax on Facebook's Australian revenue would have at least benefited the wider country, not a private media company. But they are sovereign and they are standing up to Facebook, a company that to date has arrogantly operated as a law unto itself.

But, importantly, this stouch is shining a global light not only on Facebook's power of reach and influence, but also their hypocrisy. For years they have argued that they shouldn't moderate content and that it's next to impossible for them to do so (Christchurch refers). The events of this week show both of these to be rubbish, and for that alone I applaud the Aussies.

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#2660892 21-Feb-2021 22:50

dafman: Shoshana Zuboff is the author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, so is well versed in understanding big tech.

Ok, you convinced me - she's being disingenuous.

dafman: I think she is using the Aussie situation as opportunity to highlight the power and pervasiveness of big tech, but you are right to correctly point out current issue is not privacy.

Is the new Australian law good law? No.

Should they have tackled the wider issue of privacy rights for their citizens? Yes.

Yep.

dafman: Even a tax on Facebook's Australian revenue would have at least benefited the wider country, not a private media company. But they are sovereign and they are standing up to Facebook, a company that to date has arrogantly operated as a law unto itself.

You're conflating issues. A tax on Facebook has nothing to do with privacy. And "standing up to Facebook" is meaningless unless you also say on whose behalf it's being done. Clue - it's not Australian public.

dafman: But, importantly, this stouch is shining a global light not only on Facebook's power of reach and influence, but also their hypocrisy. For years they have argued that they shouldn't moderate content and that it's next to impossible for them to do so (Christchurch refers). The events of this week show both of these to be rubbish, and for that alone I applaud the Aussies.

No it doesn't. For lack of a better analogy, it's like comparing poorly implemented IP filtering to DPI. Preventing several well-established sites from being linked to on Facebook is much easier to implement than 'content moderation'. And they've made a mess of it too, which just shows that even something supposedly simple is actually pretty hard to roll out.

Hello, Ground!

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