A new law has been proposed in Australia that would require social media companies to pay for the news items they promote. Facebook has responded by cutting off all news feeds in Australia, and the Australians are not happy:
Facebook’s brazen move could easily backfire. Facebook is facing new regulation and legal scrutiny globally, and the move is a clear demonstration of the harm that can be caused by a company wielding such enormous power over free expression.
....“Their decision to cut off news in Australia is a demonstration of their raw technical power and their willingness to use it for their own ends,” said Drew Margolin, professor of communication at Cornell University. “It reminds me of Mr. Burns’s decision to block out the sun in the Simpsons movie — it stokes fear but also encourages resistance.”
....Following Facebook’s move, hundreds of publishers lost access to revenue and readers previously gleaned from the site.
Hold on a second. I have two thoughts:
In a nutshell, one party (news publishers) wants to charge another party (Facebook) higher rates. This kind of thing happens all the time. It's practically the foundation of capitalism. If the buyer decides the price is too high, they don't buy. That's all Facebook did.
Second, aren't we all up in arms about Facebook's news feeds and how they're destroying democracy? Shouldn't we be delighted to see them cut off news altogether?
Wait. Three thoughts. Shouldn't Australian publishers be ecstatic to no longer be under the Facebook lash? Now they can promote their work without having to worry about Facebook's endless algorithm changes and paywall hacks. More generally, publishers need to make up their minds. Is Facebook good for their business because it sends lots of traffic their way? Or is it bad for business because it steals ad revenue from them?
Now, it's true that Facebook is doing this as a way of pressuring the Australian government to back off. They are undoubtedly afraid that if Australia passes its law and gets away with it, similar laws will spread across the rest of the world in short order. Still, what's wrong with that, beyond normal concerns about a big company lobbying for its interests?
There is something incoherent about our attitude toward Facebook. We don't just think of them as a big, powerful company, but as practically a demon lord run amok. If they run a news feed, they're single-handedly undermining civil society. If they cut their news feed, they're trying to destroy the news business. Meanwhile, the evidence that Facebook's curation of news actually changes much of anything in the real world is surprisingly thin.
It's on:
Facebook took down all posts Thursday that spread misinformation about the fictional nation of “Australia” on the social networking platform. “We had to take bold action to suppress misinformation about this completely made-up place,” read a company statement in part, clarifying that the platform’s algorithm and subcontracted moderators were on the lookout for fallacious statements suggesting the fabricated nation was home to the Sydney Opera House. “We will remain vigilant for anyone referring to a mythical place that’s both a continent and a country. While we support a free and open internet, these ideas have their limits with regards to hateful criticism of our platform.”
Fact is, if Facebook actually got out of the business of news and politics, news and politics would be better -- and so would Facebook. I might even find reason to use it again.
That's a booting!
It's not quite as simple as stopping news publishers from posting to Facebook. It also stops members of Facebook sharing news stories, which is how most news stories get on the app. If I see a breaking story that the dropbears are wreaking havoc in the neighborhood, it's useful to be able to share it with friends and alert them.
But we got by OK without it until very recently, so it's no biggie. Losing Google, however, would be a different matter.
Google paid up.
A natural social experiment, if you ask me. Let's see how it plays out to see what social changes, if any, result.
Yup.
facebook has given us fake news & fascism. Australia has given us AC/DC & Olivia Newton-John.
I think the Aussies are already up. Let's see if they extend their lead.
Australia gave us Rupert Murdoch.
He left.
Kevin,
With respect, you’re overthinking this. Anything that harms Facebook is an unalloyed good. If it it ultimately destroys Facebook, that would be the dawn of a much brighter future.
Mitch
Sorry but thousands of businesses, large and small, and nearly 2 billion humans disagree (and I've stopped using Facebook by and large. Never was on Instagram. Still on WhatsApp, though)
Remember MeetUp?
Zuckerberg, later than I hoped but still welcomed, has found himself on the road to Friendsterville.
I think one aspect many may not realize is that according to many comments on this, Murdoch has the Australian news market locked up. So it’s essentially Murdoch va tech platforms.
In which case, I'm on Facebook side all day long... Murdoch is a true enemy of humanity. Facebook is just a mirror of humanity...
Murdoch v. Zuckerberg?
Let them fight.
In giant mecha-Kaiju suits!
dag nabbit--you really have to watch those movies in a theater--or shell out for that 108" TV
I agree that this fact is key. Murdoch "fighting for freedom of expression" is in itself an absurdity.
It also explains why this tempest occurred in this particular teacup.
I had the same reaction you did, Kevin. Shouldn't publishers be grateful for the traffic and users that Facebook and Google drive to their sites? Doesn't that increase their own visits and advertising revenue? Don't many other companies pay Google and Facebook to have their companies promoted? How is linking to news stories any different?
I don't like Facebook and don't have a Facebook account, but Australia is trying to break the World Wide Web here. The WWW was not created with a model where one party has to pay another party to link to their web site. The publishers can either gladly accept the additional traffic that Facebook provides and monetize that traffic through their own advertising sales or put up a paywall.
IMHO, Australia is clearly in the wrong here by getting involved.
Sounds like you're sharing a Metallica tour teeshirt with Sean Fanning.
Publishers should expect to get paid directly by Google and Facebook for the privilege of using a link those same publishers made publicly available?
I don't see the file sharing analogy at all. It's more like if Metallica had put up their complete work for anyone on the web to download and then demands Google pay them for adding their site to their search results. It's absurd.
Publishers can get paid by setting up a paywall or collecting advertising revenue from the traffic that Google and Facebook drive to their sites.
The law is ridiculous. Facebook does not post links to content their users do. Facebook basically says you can post whatever you want as long as it is not illegal or against their terms of service. If a user types or pastes a link to a news article, under what legal theory is Facebook liable for that. It is even worse when it comes from content that the news organizations post to their own Facebook pages. The argument there appears to be, "hey, Facebook I freely posted this without asking you and now you owe me money."
"Terms of Service"
Kevin, I think you have a persistent misunderstanding of markets and competition that trips you up when discussing social media. Newspapers must do business with Facebook and Google. And absent government intervention, they must do business by giving away their product for free. One might argue that the complete control of this market by Google and Facebook is good for society, but that's the case you have to make -- you can't just ignore those companies' domination of the market. Information wants to be free. Journalists want to be paid. Australia is siding with the journalists. I think that's the right call.
As Patrick Leahy said in 1999, when Lars Ulrich & Dr. Dre testified to the Senate about filesharing, "Artists are entitled to recompense".
& that means whether a wealthy ex-tennis prodigy like Lars or a headphone* empresario worth a billion like Dre, or an outsider artist like Daniel Johnson or Wesley Willis.
*Given the Doctor's history with Dee Barnes, was calling those devices Beats by Dre appropriate?
^^^^Newspapers must do business with Facebook and Google. And absent government intervention, they must do business by giving away their product for free.^^^^
What, exactly, are you referring to? (Not saying you're wrong; I honestly don't get your point). I don't use FB very much these days, but with Google, a link I click on generated by a search takes me to a publisher's site where I'm either A) monetized via the publisher's advertising sales and/or B) asked to buy a subscription if I want to read the article. Nothing free about it (other than the free traffic provided by Alphabet).
Publishers, in order to survive, have to provide you with that opportunity to click, and that can't happen without Facebook/Google's cooperation. Facebook and Google, in turn, benefit from the work of publishers, but don't have to pay them for their work. It's a market where all the power is on one side. Without government help, publishers can't legally get together to decide what to do about Facebook, but Facebook can gather all the relevant people on one Zoom call and decide what to do about all the publishers -- unless the government intervenes. That's market power of a sort that (in my opinion) shouldn't be permitted.
Kevin correctly notes that publishers benefit from Facebook, but he fails to acknowledge that the publishers are receiving the same benefit that coal miners got when they did business with the company store -- they got what they needed to survive and keep toiling in the mine.
If they put a link out onto the internet, then people can use that link in their browser and read the content. There is no "doing business" going on here.
They can use a paywall if they object to that. How does Facebook or Google enter into that? FB and Google are helping the users find stuff they want to read.
If I get the link for a news story from a friend, did the newspaper charge that friend? It did not. How is Google different? Media and Google/FB are not "doing business". Consent for what they do is implied by putting links out there.
Right. Coal miners in company towns consented to their arrangement with the company store, too — as demonstrated by the fact that they kept buying from the store and showing up for work at the mine. But that's a kind of consent that should properly be outlawed.
Am I the only one mildly relieved that my need feed has become somewhat reassuringly boring as of late? Sure, we're in a "historic" winter freeze and schools are closed, but they were already mostly closed for COVID. And yes, I'm glad not to be in Texas with their power and water outrages, but I was already glad not to be in Texas. Not to sound callous, but COVID rates are falling, immunizations are proceeding, the weather will improve over the next week or two, we no longer have a lunatic as president, and at least some aspects of ccongressional behavior have a semblance of normalcy. Putin is having a hard time, we're rejoining civilization with the Paris climate agreement, and we appear poised to renew talks with Iran. I'm absolutely ready for a boring news feed. Bring it on!
*news feed (not need feed) 😐
I am relieved that we have a bit more human scale presidenting in the White House -- when the media, still coming down off their El Jefe high, tried to make El Tio Pepe playing Mario Kart at Camp David with his granddaughter a thing, all I could do was giggle; one, can you imagine El Jefe playing videogames with Barron, &, two, playing Mario Kart (or even knowing what is) puts the lie to the contention of both Berners on the fleft* & MAGATS on the right that El Tio Pepe is a demented handsy coot living fifty years in the past -- but I am still on watch for efforts like Savannah Guthrie's interview with the vice president yesterday on Today when Savannah was more oppositionally defiant of Democrat VP Kamala Harris in seven minutes than the entire White House Press Room was of Spicey, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham, & Kayleigh (Republican Press Secretaries, not elected officials, & certainly not an heartbeat away from the Oval Office) for four plus years.
*Faux left.
As someone who did have doubts about Biden's mental acuity... they were completely justified. He is old, was vague, stumbling in his answers an unprepared. But then he sharpened up and continued to stay sharp. I don't know if he started taking vitamin supplents or preparing more but whatever it was it worked.
His handsy-ness is still creepy as fuck but you go to war with the army you have and the improvement over Trump is massive. No regrets voting for him, no regrets wishing it was Bernie.
I don't understand the economics of this at all. Why is FB paying a single red cent for sending traffic to publishers? What, exactly, are news publishers charging for? Is there a "blurb" (ie, a few dozen words of content) involved that's more than a link?
When it comes to Google it's even more of a mystery. I just did a "news" search and came up with results...which are simply links to various news sites. Publishers CHARGE Google for those? Pretty sweet business model (charging for search results that bring you traffic) if you ask me.
Exactly. Most companies pay Facebook, Google or others to send traffic to their sites so that they can sell products. News sites can charge for advertising or set up a paywall.
News publishers expect Facebook and Google to pay them for the privilege of using a publicly available link. Why?
I suspect this might be part of a longer-term strategy to effectively remove content moderation from FB's control, in fact if not in name. Because that's what everybody's on about 'innit? And that's the name of the game in a nutshell: If Zuc won't silence voices which should silenced, someone else will.
"There is something incoherent about our attitude toward Facebook. We don't just think of them as a big, powerful company, but as practically a demon lord run amok."
Who's us, kemosabe?
There are a few of us who simultaneously
- don't much care about Facebook (I never use it)
- know a fair bit about technology
- haven't completely lost our minds.
I suspect you're also not in the "our attitude" camp, given your very sensible attitude to the relevant importance of Fox vs Facebook.
I have some pretty concrete reasons for despising Facebook. Their existence destroyed multiple communities that I loved. They didn't "move to Facebook". The people moved to Facebook, but the communities didn't make the transition.
Add to that the business model: "We're going to inject ourselves as the middleman in your most precious friendships and use that to show you advertising"
If they could figure out how to put advertising over the head of the bed or on the ceiling while you're having sex, they'd do that too.
As to this, though. Meh. When you dangle a link on the internet, you are saying, "go ahead, read this!" It shouldn't matter who the referrer is. I don't so much like Facebook, as I like their argument as applied to, well, everyone in the world.
Which is that I hate that everyone in the media business's first impulse these days is to cartelize and do price discrimination. Yeah, pay-per-view is ok. They gotta make a living. But the whole "You're using our links!!!11!" thing - they tried that with Google, too.
Newspapers still haven't made the transition to the Inter-webby stuff. They could be the internet "town halls"--but that never happened.
Now, should FB and other social media be regulated like a public utility? Treated as a monopoly? They are the discussions that need to happen. Not sure of the structure of revenue sharing or fees for driving traffic--but I'm guessing the ad money is drying up for local papers/news outlets and being sucked up by tech companies.
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