No Big Tech thread on FB vs. Australia?

[BeBMan]

I'm not on FB so I have no idea what's going on and who's to blame. Read FB doesn't like some law or so. Which is silly.

[Jon Miller]

There is also FB versus Apple. I side with Apple, even though they aren't perfect. Probably of Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon the best is now Microsoft (but they are a bit behind).

JM

[-Jrabbit]

Australia seems to believe that its publishers and broadcasters should be fairly compensated for their journalistic efforts being freely distributed on social media (not just FB).
From TheHill.com...

Facebook said Wednesday it will restrict news content in Australia over a proposed law that would require tech giants to pay publishers for it.

Facebook’s update will restrict Australian publishers from sharing or posting content on the platform's pages and limit Australian users from viewing or sharing international publishers' links and posts.

Facebook has been issuing warnings about the proposal, and the platform said it felt it had to restrict the content as it inches closer to becoming law.

"The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content. It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter," Facebook’s managing director of Australia and New Zealand, William Easton, said in a blog post.

The proposal would allow media companies to request payment from tech giants for news articles on their platform. It would subject Google and Facebook to mandatory price arbitration if a deal cannot be reached.

Facebook and Google have long been accused of harming news outlets over their algorithms and policies around sharing content, but the tech companies have pushed back on such accusations.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/539244-facebook-to-restrict-news-content-in-australia-in-response-to-new-law

[Egbert]

I gather News Corp wanted money so the politicians obeyed News Corp and passed laws to make Google and Facebook hand over the loot.

Facebook refused to bend over.

Hopefully this whole sorry saga will do real harm to those foreign tech giants and to News Corp. And harm guvmint. I hate them all.

[Dinner]

The problem seems to be the Australian politicians. They want to pass a law saying if anyone posts a link to any Australian media site then Facebook has to pay money to that media site. Facebook responds logically and says "well, we just will ban posting content from Australian media sites then." Predictably, the politicians then cry big fake crocodile tears.

This is a problem the politicians created to begin with.

[Dinner]

Australia seems to believe that its publishers and broadcasters should be fairly compensated for their journalistic efforts being freely distributed on social media (not just FB).
From TheHill.com...



https://thehill.com/policy/technolog...nse-to-new-law

Except those media sites already benefit from vastly increased traffic to their sites and thus increased ad revenue. They just want to steal even more. To hell with them. There is no reason Facebook has to host content which it loses money on. They can and did simply say no.

[-Jrabbit]

Indeed.
Well, 81% of online ad revenue in Oz goes to Google and the social media biggies. So there's that.
But hey, I just posted what seemed to be a fairly factual article on the OP topic. I don't actually have a horse in this race.

[Dale]

Short version:
Australia's competition watchdog on the urging of the news/media industry investigated social platforms usage of news content and the striping of their ad content through news articles. Whether you agree with the result or not, the ACCC found that yes, Google and Facebook were making millions of dollars of ad revenue through users viewing of the news/media content, and none of that was making its way to the content creators. It's actually against our Copyright Law for that to happen.

So the ACCC advised the Govt to pass this law, making social platforms ink a deal with news/media organisations to stripe advertising through the creator's content. Note: other countries already have this law in place (I don't have names on me). Result, Google and Facebook have a tanti and a sook about it. ACCC found Google Australia Ltd made $4.5 billion AUD from ad revenue striped through news content, and paid $16 million in tax, and nothing to the content creators.

Up to this week Google was threatening to pull search and news from Australia. Just this week they have inked deals with the major news/media players in Australia, and working on a umbrella agreement for all the little ones. Facebook said **** it and pulled the plug on ALL news/media for ALL Australians. We cannot view any news from Australia or overseas. Not only our local news but news from CNN, BBC, Aljizira, everyone. Even The Onion.

Caught in the crossfire are Govt departments who release news releases on their Facebook pages, including Health (great in the middle of a pandemic and vaccine rollout), Meteorology, charities and for some weird reason two motorbike clubs.

It's just totally ****ed up now. But hey, at least we can now say "anything you see on Facebook is bull**** fake news".

[-Jrabbit]

Thanks for clarifying, Dale.

[EPW]

Facebook standing up to Aussie Fascism Google

[Dinner]

Short version:
Australia's competition watchdog on the urging of the news/media industry investigated social platforms usage of news content and the striping of their ad content through news articles. Whether you agree with the result or not, the ACCC found that yes, Google and Facebook were making millions of dollars of ad revenue through users viewing of the news/media content, and none of that was making its way to the content creators. It's actually against our Copyright Law for that to happen.

So the ACCC advised the Govt to pass this law, making social platforms ink a deal with news/media organisations to stripe advertising through the creator's content. Note: other countries already have this law in place (I don't have names on me). Result, Google and Facebook have a tanti and a sook about it. ACCC found Google Australia Ltd made $4.5 billion AUD from ad revenue striped through news content, and paid $16 million in tax, and nothing to the content creators.

Up to this week Google was threatening to pull search and news from Australia. Just this week they have inked deals with the major news/media players in Australia, and working on a umbrella agreement for all the little ones. Facebook said **** it and pulled the plug on ALL news/media for ALL Australians. We cannot view any news from Australia or overseas. Not only our local news but news from CNN, BBC, Aljizira, everyone. Even The Onion.

Caught in the crossfire are Govt departments who release news releases on their Facebook pages, including Health (great in the middle of a pandemic and vaccine rollout), Meteorology, charities and for some weird reason two motorbike clubs.

It's just totally ****ed up now. But hey, at least we can now say "anything you see on Facebook is bull**** fake news".

So where is the problem? They now are not allowing that content on their network, so there is no valid claim that they are some how profiting off that content, even though it had previously driving loads of clicks to News Corp and other media sites which News Corp directly profited from. Australian politicians said they had to pay if any user linked to it, now no users link to it, so to hell with News Corp and their rent seeking behavior. At the end of the day News Corp will be even worse off now because Google and Facebook will no longer deliver millions of clicks to their websites.

Careful what you ask for because you might just get it.

[Dale]

So where is the problem? They now are not allowing that content on their network, so there is no valid claim that they are some how profiting off that content, even though it had previously driving loads of clicks to News Corp and other media sites which News Corp directly profited from. Australian politicians said they had to pay if any user linked to it, now no users link to it, so to hell with News Corp and their rent seeking behavior. At the end of the day News Corp will be even worse off now because Google and Facebook will no longer deliver millions of clicks to their websites.

Careful what you ask for because you might just get it.

I don't have a problem with it, it takes lots of crap out of my feed. I loved the old days where you feed only showed what your friends posted in chronological order, ALL of it not this filtered bull**** they do now. Ads were on the side, no bull**** "sponsored content" etc. I use news sites directly or shock horror, watch it on the TV, so doesn't affect me. I know..... so old school!

The people with the problems are saying that fake news and misinformation now has open slather to post their dumb crap. I say like I've always said: don't believe any **** off Facebook.

I do agree with one point though, blocking us from international news is simply a stupid overkill and childlike tantrum. The new law only affected Australian news/media content.

EDIT: My opinion is that the Govt is taking it up the ass from Murdoch again. Murdoch is ****ty because print media (his original baby) is dead here in Australia and blames Facebook. However, news/media has no argument as far as I'm concerned. They themselves post content on Facebook, on their pages, which they maintain. So IMO news/media have given FB permission to use the content as per the TC's, same as us Joe Public give FB permission to use our photos as per the TC's.

[Egbert]

Except those media sites already benefit from vastly increased traffic to their sites and thus increased ad revenue. They just want to steal even more. To hell with them. There is no reason Facebook has to host content which it loses money on. They can and did simply say no.

The newspapers here in Sydney have lost truly massive amounts of advertising revenue.

For example the "Sydney Morning Herald" was a massively big and thick broadsheet newspaper 20 years ago. It is now a little tabloid. Twenty years ago it had a huge staff of journalists. Now it does not have many journalists. The nature o the articles has also changed with a much larger proportions of opinion pieces and celebrity gossip. They have not made up for the lss of print revenues in their online editions.

Most of the advertising revenue goes to Facebook and Google who contribute nothing to informing society.

I think mostly the poltiicians have bent over for News Corp who want money. I am not sure any questions of right or wrong entered into the passing of the legislation other than politicians bending over for News Corp.

[Literally Wiglaf]

Facebook is a criminal terrorist organization.

Bravo to any and every government that takes a piece out of their asses.

Facebook falsely reported the BBC to the police after being confronted about child porn.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39187929

There are a lot of people in this world who won't tolerate the existence of Facebook.

Facebook is an organization whose days are numbered.

I support the addition of "Facebook" to terrorist watch lists.

[Literally Wiglaf]

Joe Public give FB permission to use our photos as per the TC's.

No
They don't.

No corporate blather takes away your civil rights.

Facebook is a criminal organization.

[Literally Wiglaf]

an end user license agreement is NEVER LEGITIMATE

[Egbert]

There are people thinking about a class action against Facebook for unconscionable conduct

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9278239/Facebook-face-lawsuits-unconscionable-conduct-brutal-Australian-news-ban.html