Facebook, Google and Australia

[OutByEaster?]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

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.

I think both parties want to carry on as now, raking in the revenues that this process generates for both of them - it's just that the publishers want a bigger slice of that profit pie and access to all of the secrets that Facebook and Google have that make them more attractive to advertisers. They've found through lobbying of government and management of public perception a mechanism to strong-arm the social media and search engine companies into a position where they will have to make some sort of compromise. It's ugly and I don't think either of them give a fig for journalism or the little guy.

 

[OutByEaster?]

37 minutes ago, blandy said:

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

Apparently they managed to turn off the home page on Facebook for Facebook during their purge.  

[OutByEaster?]

If we had honest representative government left anywhere in the world, this would be a fantastic opportunity to properly regulate and tax all online news providers and ensure that some of the money they generate through advertising was recycled into journalism and those that create content.

If.

 

[blandy]

6 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

it's just that the publishers want a bigger slice of that profit pie and access to all of the secrets that Facebook and Google have that make them more attractive to advertisers.

Maybe that's right. I kind of see another factor. News orgs that used to rely on dead trees and make lots of money and have lots of readers got biffed by the discovery of the internet when Tim Berners-Lee found it one day. So they tried different models - paywalls, free access (giving away what people previously paid for), reader subscriptions, donations...etc. And mostly with a few exceptions they've not found a way to make it work yet. Loads of mistakes along the way. Meanwhile the likes of Facepage and Yahoogle have grown on the back of other people's content - whether that's just numpties posting what they had for tea, or bits of news articles, or more sinisterly their using data to sell ads and wotnot. So yeah, Murdoch or whoever - if Facepage is sticking it to him, it's easy to side with Facebook, but I think if people want proper journalism to thrive then there has to be a way to fund it, and "the free market" isn't it. It needs some intervention to re-balance the power a bit - more to help mid-sized and smaller publishers than the Aussie Equivalent of the Daily Heil. I see Facebook as just totally unwilling to even contemplate that bigger picture. I mean Google used to be "do no Evil" (it was bollex,but still) Facebook seems to be "do Evil and eff you".

[blandy]

18 minutes ago, bickster said:

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

No - Murdoch's Aussie Media is smaller than Facepage or Yahoogle, but it's not him I'm worried about . Like I said the draft law is badly drafted, and I think it's more of a threat to persuade than likely to be enacted as it is.

My commenting really is around looking after the news media overall - particularly the medium and smaller co's that I feel are both forced to depend on Facebook (by it's market dominance) and being parasitically leeched off to an extent at the same time. Facebook and Google are totally dominant. If in todays world you want to have people come to your Site, or shop or busines you are compelled by monopoly to use use them. Yest at the same time they use that dominance to keep others down and to prevent competition, all the while raking in revenue from the fact that these orgs have to use them. I couldn't think of a model more deserving of being shaken up or broken up.

Facebook is worse than Murdoch, but they're both absolutely terrible.

[LondonLax]

3 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

That's not what facebook is doing. Facebook isn't "stealing" stories, it's sharing them, at the request of the people that write them - the publishers absolutely want Facebook to continue to do that, they would like money as well. 

 

This is the crux of the problem.

Publishers don’t want Facebook/Google to be the gateway to their product, but they don’t have any other option anymore. And it turns out that being the ‘paperboy’ who delivers the news pays a heck of a lot better than making the news itself.

This business model is to our detriment as a society.

Edited February 19, 2021 by LondonLax

[LondonLax]

It is a shame this is being viewed as Murdoch vs Facebook in a lot of circles rather than Facebook vs journalism. It clouds the basic problem somewhat. 

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, LondonLax said:

It is a shame this is being viewed as Murdoch vs Facebook in a lot of circles rather than Facebook vs journalism. It clouds the basic problem somewhat. 

As was pointed out in the link I posted before though, there's nothing forcing these media companies to reinvest the money in journalism qua journalism; they are completely free to spend it on dividends, executive compensation, whatever, and are they really going to do anything else?

I guess time will tell.

[LondonLax]

16 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

As was pointed out in the link I posted before though, there's nothing forcing these media companies to reinvest the money in journalism qua journalism; they are completely free to spend it on dividends, executive compensation, whatever, and are they really going to do anything else?

I guess time will tell.

Sure, I know the Guardian has said it will be reinvested into the newsroom as they don’t have shareholders, I think a lot of them genuinely need the cash. You can’t go on the Guardian website without being bombarded with requests for donations to keep them going but they are still losing money.

Fairfax media used to be a well respected newspaper group producing centre left broadsheet newspapers (SMH, The Age etc). Unfortunately in the Facebook era they have been brought to their knees shedding all their investigatory journalism staff and bought up by a centre right television media company. Now they have Birmingham Mail style click bait headlines and regurgitate content from the Telegraph in the UK or the Washington Post/NYTimes in the US. 

Regional newspapers have shut down across the country, consolidating media into the bigger players like NewsCorp.

Facebook claim they are helpfully sending links to articles (or the ones that fit their algorithm) thereby providing a service to newspapers but they are also draining the well dry of operating revenue and sending it overseas. 

Hopefully something positive comes out of this action by the Aus government because the current model is broken as far as its impact on our society via the consolidation and dumbing down of news.

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by LondonLax

[bickster]

21 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

Publishers don’t want Facebook/Google to be the gateway to their product, but they don’t have any other option anymore.

It wasn't Facebook that took "Journalism's" customers, the internet itself did that. Newspapers pushed their online content through Social Media when they went online, that isn't the fault of Facebook (or any other SM platform), this pushing of their websites through SM and so on originated with the news outlets, this is no chicken and egg situation. It was their reaction to their changing business model that caused this, SM platforms happily went along with it of course, why wouldn't they it was inadvertantly pushing them more business. But now the circle has turned and the influence of SM platforms is greater than the influence of the news platforms

This problem is of the News Platforms own making, they've actually created the problem now want something back to compensate them for their own errors of judgement

Will we suddenly see journalists refusing to use Twitter to break their stories? Journalists are creating their content on SM, then going and writing the copy later, they fall over themselves to post the scoop from a press conference and there's very little return for that at the time. Twitter should charge professional journalists for using their platform to promote themselves (I realise they won't but it's what is happening here in reverse)

[bickster]

The Crux of this matter is us, the people. We don't want to pay for news. We never have done. News Platforms recognose that. They had price wars, they  started Free newspapers, they started subscription News Channels and realised very quickly that people didn't want to pay for that either. Some online content is paywalled, sod it, I won't pay for it, few of us will

Having said that, I understand the need for journalists and news but I won't pay for it, I can live without it because frankly most journalism is utter shite now, there are very few decent journo's left

[LondonLax]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

It wasn't Facebook that took "Journalism's" customers, the internet itself did that. Newspapers pushed their online content through Social Media when they went online, that isn't the fault of Facebook (or any other SM platform), this pushing of their websites through SM and so on originated with the news outlets, this is no chicken and egg situation. It was their reaction to their changing business model that caused this, SM platforms happily went along with it of course, why wouldn't they it was inadvertantly pushing them more business. But now the circle has turned and the influence of SM platforms is greater than the influence of the news platforms

This problem is of the News Platforms own making, they've actually created the problem now want something back to compensate them for their own errors of judgement

Will we suddenly see journalists refusing to use Twitter to break their stories? Journalists are creating their content on SM, then going and writing the copy later, they fall over themselves to post the scoop from a press conference and there's very little return for that at the time. Twitter should charge professional journalists for using their platform to promote themselves (I realise they won't but it's what is happening here in reverse)

I would have some sympathy for that argument (it’s the newspapers own fault) if it was the case that well run operations did well and only the poorly run news services failed but this is a problem that is almost universal. Newspapers everywhere are downsizing or consolidating towards becoming behemoths that can survive in the digital era. Even global names like The Washington Post loses nearly $100m a year and is propped up by being owned by one of the richest men in the world. 

It seems to me that the system is broken, not just a case of some newspaper mastheads making poor business decisions. 

[LondonLax]

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

Having said that, I understand the need for journalists and news but I won't pay for it, I can live without it because frankly most journalism is utter shite now, there are very few decent journo's left

And this is why the Facebook/Google revenue model is a danger to democracy. The ‘fourth estate’ has been eviscerated to the point at which many decide it’s not worth listening to anymore and only produces ‘fake news’.

That void is filled by YouTube cranks who tell their audience that elections were stolen by a global pedophile ring or vaccines contain microchips. Or perhaps even more reasonable and believable stories that may resonate with you and I but are still poorly researched and contain an underlying agenda.

[bickster]

1 minute ago, LondonLax said:

I would have some sympathy for that argument (it’s the newspapers own fault) if it was the case that well run operations did well and only the poorly run news services failed but this is a problem that is almost universal. Newspapers everywhere are downsizing or consolidating towards becoming behemoths that can survive in the digital era. Even global names like The Washington Post loses nearly $100m a year and is propped up by being owned by one of the richest men in the world. 

It seems to me that the system is broken, not just a case of some newspaper mastheads making poor business decisions. 

Newspaper circulations were dwindling way before the internet. Part of the problem is as I was saying above.... people don't want to pay for news and as a consequence News platforms have been slowly racing to the bottom for a lot longer than the internet

[bickster]

1 minute ago, LondonLax said:

And this is why the Facebook/Google revenue model is a danger to democracy. The ‘fourth estate’ has been eviscerated to the point at which many decide it’s not worth listening to anymore and only produces ‘fake news’.

That void is filled by YouTube cranks who tell their audience that elections were stolen by a global pedophile ring or vaccines contain microchips. Or perhaps even more reasonable and believable stories that may resonate with you and I but are still poorly researched and contain an underlying agenda.

A hell of a lot of the fourth estate peddles the same shite as Youtube cranks

[OutByEaster?]

19 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

It seems to me that the system is broken, not just a case of some newspaper mastheads making poor business decisions. 

The system changed. TV happened, then the internet happened, then phones happened - that's the sad truth for newspapers.  Going online doesn't work well for newspapers - because online every single one of us stands in the virtual paper shop and reads the bits of every newspaper - Facebook didn't do that, the internet did. Newspapers are now more of lifestyle choice, a half hour relax you can buy for a pound rather than a way to get your information.

1 hour ago, LondonLax said:

Publishers don’t want Facebook/Google to be the gateway to their product, but they don’t have any other option anymore. And it turns out that being the ‘paperboy’ who delivers the news pays a heck of a lot better than making the news itself.

I think that Facebook are a bit more like WH Smiths and the news publishers have noticed that less people are buying newspapers but WH Smiths are still doing alright. They've done the research and discovered that 20% of WH Smiths customers each day only go in to buy a newspaper, that's 200,000 people and of those, 20% end up buying something else while they're there - a bottle of water, a snickers, a lottery ticket or whatever - on average, those people spend an additional £1.20 at WH Smiths when they go to get the paper - that's an extra £44k a day for WH Smiths - the newspapers would like 15% of that as they've generated it and WH Smiths have said no.

 

 

[LondonLax]

7 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

The system changed. TV happened, then the internet happened, then phones happened - that's the sad truth for newspapers.  Going online doesn't work well for newspapers - because online every single one of us stands in the virtual paper shop and reads the bits of every newspaper - Facebook didn't do that, the internet did. Newspapers are now more of lifestyle choice, a half hour relax you can buy for a pound rather than a way to get your information.

I think that Facebook are a bit more like WH Smiths and the news publishers have noticed that less people are buying newspapers but WH Smiths are still doing alright. They've done the research and discovered that 20% of WH Smiths customers each day only go in to buy a newspaper, that's 200,000 people and of those, 20% end up buying something else while they're there - a bottle of water, a snickers, a lottery ticket or whatever - on average, those people spend an additional £1.20 at WH Smiths when they go to get the paper - that's an extra £44k a day for WH Smiths - the newspapers would like 15% of that as they've generated and WH Smiths have said no.

 

 

So I think we have all agreed there is a significant problem for news journalism with the current arrangement? 

Presumably you also believe news journalism is an important component for the functioning of democracy? 

I guess the question then is how to alter the current arrangement so the expensive kind of investigative journalism can remain viable when the advertising revenue it relies on is going to the distributor rather than the publishers.

[OutByEaster?]

6 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

So I think we have all agreed there is a significant problem for news journalism with the current arrangement? 

Yes, absolutely - I think we would probably not quite agree on how the current arrangement would be correctly described, but neither of us think it works well as a theatre for successful journalism in a functioning democracy.

Quote

Presumably you also believe news journalism is an important component for the functioning of democracy? 

I do. I don't think we live in a functioning democracy, but I think news journalism is a vital component of that ideal and a great indicator of the health of a democracy.

Quote

I guess the question then is how to alter the current arrangement so the expensive kind of investigative journalism can remain viable when the advertising revenue it relies on is going to the distributor rather than the publishers.

Indeed, and that's a heckuva question. Now, seeing as we're unlikely to be able to overthrow capitalism, the key would be in separating the provision of quality journalism from the advertising revenue and finding alternative ways to finance journalism, we can't change the entire basis of our society so we need to find a way to separate that journalism from it's overriding principle - I'll happily admit I have absolutely no clue as to how we'd do that.

[bickster]

8 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

Presumably you also believe news journalism is an important component for the functioning of democracy? 

Yes, obviously

9 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

So I think we have all agreed there is a significant problem for news journalism with the current arrangement?

No, I don't agree with that in so much that News Journalism's significant problem (which it does have) isn't as a result of nor is it exacerbated by the current arrangement with SM Platforms. It's significant problem is of it's own making and pre-dates even the internet. SM platforms are not the cause of that problem. To "punish" SM platforms for a problem not of their making is unjust

13 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

I guess the question then is how to alter the current arrangement so the expensive kind of investigative journalism can remain viable when the advertising revenue it relies on is going to the distributor rather than the publishers.

I honestly don't know what the solution is but this isn't it. If News platforms consider investigative journalism to be important, they have other relationships with political organisations they need to consider, they should attempt to stop pushing their political agendas (or that of their owners), actually invest more in content of that nature and actually start producing content that isn't driven by the needs of their paymasters. They need journalism to become more independent again. People lost faith in news platforms, they need to regain that trust. They are far from it now and this current proposed law in Australia will only widen that trust gap

[blandy]

43 minutes ago, bickster said:

The Crux of this matter is us, the people. We don't want to pay for news

I do and I do. Though I may be in a small minority, there are still enough of us to allow good journalism to thrive. The NYT is, the Guardian is (after missteps along the way) making it work on line. Agreed that the media brought a lot of their problems on themselves by giving away content, then paywalling, then grovelling, then clickbaiting and all the rest, though it’s easy to be wise in hindsight. But while they were floundering around they were given a great big shove back down the pit by the likes of Facepage and Yahoogle. I totally have the same take as @LondonLax on this, I think. And it is a shame it’s being portrayed as the evil Murdock v the Evil Facepage, and then people take sides based on which they despise the most. For me Facepage and Google offer nothing in terms of journalism, they’re parasites. They do other stuff that is of great use to people, or entertainment or whatever,  but they have nothing to offer in terms of journalism themselves, other than market dominance leading to orgs having to use them to display their wares. If they weren’t so monopolistic, then competition might dramatically alter the balance. Because despite ea relative few people like me paying for journalism, it’s largely funded through clicks. But advertisers want the most people to see their ad, so they pay the big bucks to the biggest number of page views, which lo and behold is google and Facepage who get the views through hosting other people’s content.