Facebook, Google and Australia

[KenjiOgiwara]

1 minute ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think it's probably truer to say "A company publishing content they don't pay for on platforms it was intended for."

 

I don't think Mark Zuckerberg coded FB with news in mind.

[OutByEaster?]

7 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

I don't think Mark Zuckerberg coded FB with news in mind.

I agree, but I think that most newspaper websites do code with FB in mind.

They have a button that says share to Facebook - a one click thing that says "Please help our story find a wider audience by moving it to your Facebook feed" and then when you click it, the newspaper has created an appropriate thumbnail picture and section of the headline so it displays in the right way to get them clicks back from Facebook.

Facebook aren't stealing these stories, the people who write the stories are desperate for the exposure that Facebook gives to those stories and the value they get back from people who click on them on Facebook.

That's why they are so angry that Facebook have switched off that facility - it's costing the Australian newspapers a whole load of exposure and reach.

They want to be paid for something that they both want and benefit from.

 

 

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

I don't think Mark Zuckerberg coded FB with news in mind.

No but the News Companies have specifically targeted Facebook and other social media sites to drive the SM's customers to them, now Rupert and his Chums want FB to pay them for their targeting of FB's users

It is beyond odd. It's a protection racket

[blandy]

21 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I don't think they should be forced to pay if they decide not to link - that choice should be Facebook's.

Facebook are essentially asking the news publishers whether they lose more money by not having the link based advertising revenue or by not having the links.Really?

Really? You don't theink they should pay for reproducing content if they don't link to it? Wow. Have I misunderstood?

[OutByEaster?]

3 minutes ago, blandy said:

Really? You don't theink they should pay for reproducing content if they don't link to it? Wow. Have I misunderstood?

Yes - mean I think you can force them to pay for using the product, but you have to accept that if they then decide not to use the product that's up to them. There seems to be a move to force them to pay and force them to do the thing they pay for - which is a bit cake-and-eat-it.

 

[blandy]

13 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Facebook aren't stealing these stories, the people who write the stories are desperate for the exposure that Facebook gives to those stories and the value they get back from people who click on them on Facebook.

That's why they are so angry that Facebook have switched off that facility - it's costing the Australian newspapers a whole load of exposure and reach.

They want to be paid for something that they both want and benefit from.

Assuming that's true (I don't know I don't use F/B) isn't there a question of kind of the little guy (relatively) essentially being dependent upon the big guy, by dint of the big guy's near monopoly? It's like with Amazon in a way  - it has a dominant position, so now little home sellers, or small shops - bookshops and the like, they have to go on to Amazon and hope to pick up some crumbs, while at the same time if a seller is offering for a lower price than Amazon itself, Amazon just drops it's price and kills the competition if there's any sense of scale to the drift towards the little guy. It's not a benign relationship in either case.

[blandy]

Just now, OutByEaster? said:

Yes - mean I think you can force them to pay for using the product, but you have to accept that if they then decide not to use the product that's up to them. There seems to be a move to force them to pay and force them to do the thing they pay for - which is a bit cake-and-eat-it.

I totally agre that id they don't use content from elsewhere, that's their free choice and they pay nothing. I don't get that they use content from elsewhere and don't pay for it. I guess we just have different views, which is fine.

[blandy]

36 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Alexa, can you tell me what search engine you're using to provide me with results?

I asked Siri and I asked my android phone, and they said "Bing". They used google to search for the answer.

[OutByEaster?]

11 minutes ago, blandy said:

I totally agre that id they don't use content from elsewhere, that's their free choice and they pay nothing. I don't get that they use content from elsewhere and don't pay for it. I guess we just have different views, which is fine.

We don't particularly, the first one is what bought me here.

Facebook deciding that paying to have content they didn't create wasn't for them has lead to them being called bullies, incompatible with democracy, and bringing a country to its knees. I'm baffled by that, I cannot see how a company making a commercial decision to not buy a product has done that.

The second one, I'm not at all certain on - it's a symbiotic relationship that both parties benefit from - and crucially it's one that the publisher can affect some control over - if they want people to only access news via their own site they can use a paywall or at least make it more difficult to share those stories. 

The principle of the internet being a place where information can be shared freely is for me more important than the advertising revenue that's lost to those newspapers. Especially when there are a number of other much more effective ways of addressing that funding balance than the very limited private interest push for a law change that seems to be happening.

You can make a case for Facebook charging publishers to have their stories feature on timelines and you can make a case for publishers charging Facebook for featuring their work, the key is that the process makes money for both of them - it's profitable in both cases, if handful of organisations want to argue over who gets what slice of that cake there's no need for them to involve governments or all of us. It's a squabble between two despicable corporate organisations who are seeking to weaponise public opinion. 

I completely agree with you that we must find better ways to reward content creators, but I think this is completely the wrong argument for that.

[OutByEaster?]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

I asked Siri and I asked my android phone, and they said "Bing". They used google to search for the answer.

It's interesting that Apple's Siri uses google and Amazon's Alexa uses Bing. I'm not sure what it tells us, but it's interesting.

[KenjiOgiwara]

27 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I agree, but I think that most newspaper websites do code with FB in mind.

Yeah I think they've been forced on to that road some what by the internet, free news and social media.

But ultimately I think summing up pro and cons here I think it's reasonable for FB to pay for generating billions on others work.

[OutByEaster?]

1 minute ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

But ultimately I think summing up pro and cons here I think it's reasonable for FB to pay for generating billions on others work.

I agree, but I also think that Facebook could legitimately claim that by driving increased traffic onto those news websites, they are already generating a lot of money for those companies. 

 

[blandy]

Just now, OutByEaster? said:

Facebook deciding that paying to have content they didn't create wasn't for them has lead to them being called bullies, incompatible with democracy, and bringing a country to its knees. I'm baffled by that, I cannot see how a company making a commercial decision to not buy a product has done that.

Becuase that's not (only) what they've done. They removed all kinds, not just news. They removed local medical advice about Covid, they removed community hub type stuff - they just blanket removed a bunch of stuff as a reaction to being asked to pay for specific News articles. Sure they are within their rights to (if they want) just leave completely or turn off their Australian "service". But the behaviour of

"Please negotiate a contribution towards the News orgs costs, costs of articles you use on your site" was

"Eff you, we're turning off a load of other stuff as well as News"

That's bullying, because they're taking away people's health info, people's community info out of spite, in reaction to being asked to pass on a negotiated tiny bit of their huge profit to smaller orgs

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

It's interesting that Apple's Siri uses google and Amazon's Alexa uses Bing. I'm not sure what it tells us, but it's interesting.

Yeah. Apple used Bing, but then Google paid them to use Google

[OutByEaster?]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

Becuase that's not (only) what they've done. They removed all kinds, not just news. They removed local medical advice about Covid, they removed community hub type stuff - they just blanket removed a bunch of stuff as a reaction to being asked to pay for specific News articles. Sure they are within their rights to (if they want) just leave completely or turn off their Australian "service". But the behaviour of

"Please negotiate a contribution towards the News orgs costs, costs of articles you use on your site" was

"Eff you, we're turning off a load of other stuff as well as News"

That's bullying, because they're taking away people's health info, people's community info out of spite, in reaction to being asked to pass on a negotiated tiny bit of their huge profit to smaller orgs

They've turned all that stuff back on - they went with a risk averse "turn everything off then pick bits that are okay to turn back on" approach.

[blandy]

1 minute ago, OutByEaster? said:

they went with a risk averse "turn everything off

Nah. There was no risk. There is as of yet no Law. They could have just gone with the major News orgs, it would have been simpler and quicker. But they didn't. They knew what they were doing.

[OutByEaster?]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

Nah. There was no risk. There is as of yet no Law. They could have just gone with the major News orgs, it would have been simpler and quicker. But they didn't. They knew what they were doing.

I don't think they have, I think they've taken a quick blanket approach, turn off all news from Australia and then discovered that they'd included some things by mistake. I don't think that because I think that Facebook are in any way some sort of paragon of societal dignity, I think that because it would have made more commercial sense for them not to have turned off the sites that aren't involved.

 

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think that because it would have made more commercial sense for them not to have turned off the sites that aren't involved.

I dunno. I take the point that turning off charity pages, or health service pages for a day might cost them a slight dip in ad revenue. Yet at least equally, if they're trying to win a greater money argument about paying for content over the next decades, then surely that is the real calculation? The loss of a few clicks for a day is chicken feed in comparison.

It's an odd one this, because as you've said, they have a right to withdraw their site/services, but equally they don't actually want to - what they want is to carry on as now, raking in the revenue, whislt not paying anything. What the news orgs want is also to have their cake and eat it - they want paying for their content (fair enough) but they also want Facepage and Google to "spread the word". The smaller guys (without repeating what I said before) are between a rock and a hard place, like with record shops, or bookshops and Amazon, but the Bigger News orgs are not quite in the same weak position as those little guys. There's a lot of sharks, and a lot of minnows.

[OutByEaster?]

I'm reading through the draft legislation and it is horrifically bent towards serving the very largest Australian news outlets (Murdoch).

So for example, using the UK, The Athletic would never be able to charge Facebook for using its stories because it's primary business is not journalism about publicly significant issues; journalism that engages the public in public debate and informs democratic decision making or journalism relating to community and local events. It's just sport.

However, Sky Sports would be able to charge Facebook for using their stories, because once you qualify as a core news organisation on the criteria above, any and all content you produce becomes eligible. 

An independent showbiz site like E! online wouldn't be able to charge Facebook because they aren't a core news organisation - but they would be if they were owned by Sky.

That benefits the larger news organisations at the detriment of independent journalism.

For smaller companies the law pushes the provision of access to Facebooks algorithms - the things that Facebook uses to tell advertises that they and they alone can ensure that their adverts reach exactly the right audience based on all of the stuff Facebook collects about us. The law requires Facebook to hand that over to every small newspaper in Australia so that they can use it directly to sell advertising on their own sites. 

There is no way that Facebook can agree to that - it's asking them to give up the very thing that makes them a business rather than a noticeboard.

Reading through the document it sounds more like a threatening letter than a piece of legislation - it's horrendous and it's hard to see how Facebook can have done anything but take the action they have.

 

 

[bickster]

14 minutes ago, blandy said:

on a negotiated tiny bit of their huge profit to smaller orgs

This is News Corp you're describing as the "smaller org." Rupert effing Murdoch

Its about a transference of money from very bad to much worse

It is a modern cyber equivalent of a protection racket, enforced by a Government whilst actually starting to erode the Open Net