from the at-what-age-does-it-change-from-news-to-olds? dept.
Facebook said Wednesday that it'll restrict users from viewing or sharing Australian news, because of a proposed law in the country that would require the social network to pay news publishers for content.
Called the News Media Bargaining Code, the legislation also affects Google, which surfaces news articles in search results. News outlets have struggled to compete with tech firms for advertising dollars and argue they should be compensated for articles shown on online platforms such as Facebook and Google. Facebook's move comes after Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. signed a landmark deal with Google so the media outlet gets paid for news content.
Facebook said the business benefits of displaying news on its platform are "minimal," noting that news makes up less than 4% of the content people see in their News Feed. The social network, which has been combating misinformation, has also been reducing the amount of political content users see on Facebook.
The new restrictions appear to already be in place. Users who visit an Australian news outlet's Facebook Page no longer see any articles displayed.
Related:
Google inks deals, while Facebook blocks content in Australia media dustup
Australia news media 'large and small' discuss Google deals
(Score: 4, Funny) by MIRV888 on Thursday February 18 2021, @01:24PM (3 children)
Australia needs to get in line and do what Facebook tells them.
I notice Facebook doesn't strong arm China though. They accommodate.
How odd.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @02:43PM (1 child)
On the other hand, you can look at Morrisons spastic response as being rather Internet-kook: "We will not be intimidated!"... Really nobody cares. Australia decided it could do an arbitrary shake down of some foreign information services in order to preserve its own domestic propaganda infrastructure. The provider decided not to play along. This is no different than the playground spat between Trump and Twitter, just on a bigger scale.
99% of people aren't going to have a clue what the real issues are here. It is just a juicy cat fight. Might as well put Morrison and the Zuck in a Jello wrestling ring. Morrison clearly doesn't know that he is the sucker here.
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Saturday February 20 2021, @04:31AM
The action may be to garner support for internal politics, but they are the only nation on earth who has done it. That suggests to me Facebook (and presumably Google too) make the threat. They are demonstrating that they are willing to carry it out too. We will see where this ends.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @09:52PM
Facebook hates faggots from Black Countries too! [mirror.co.uk]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @01:26PM (11 children)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @02:33PM
I deny Facebook access to my information. So do many of us who boycott it: not because we want to rule over anyone but because we don’t want them to rule over us.
(Score: 4, Informative) by edIII on Thursday February 18 2021, @07:27PM (9 children)
That doesn't track here though. The actors denying access to information is the government itself. It's rare that I can come to the defense of Facebook here, but here we are.
Full disclaimer: I don't even let packets through that come from facebook, nor do I allow anything to resolve from facebook. If there is information or content on Facebook people are trying to show me, I just go without.
The truth here as I understand it, is that Facebook offers pages for businesses and government departments. Businesses and government get to define their content right? So the government along with theses news outlets were adding links to their own articles, and then somehow expecting that Facebook would be forced to pay for them?
That's ridiculous. Say it out loud, and then think about it. Facebook offers a page, you get to put whatever links you want to on the page, and for certain type of links you can then demand payment from the host of the page? That's like throwing items in the customers cart and then demanding they now pay for it. Or more accurately, it's like a customer bringing their own home made wares into a store, placing them on a shelf, and then demanding the store pay for it because government passed a law saying they had to.
Is Facebook automatically creating these pages for news outlets in the same way Grubhub is automatically creating websites and menus for restaurants in the US? To my knowledge no.
Remember, during this whole time, those government and news outlet sites are fully available to any Australian. Just don't go to their Facebook page for news anymore, and go direct to the sites themselves. I've seen the news, and Australian politicians are acting like Facebook is now blocking information from being communicated. Which is hyperbolic retardidity.
It's hilarious that these morons are crying foul, and big tech abuse, because Facebook didn't elect to cooperate with the shakedown for money.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @08:00PM (4 children)
Facebook is violating copyright for their own profit. Let them either compensate the authors or die.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @09:46PM
Preferably both. But especially the latter.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday February 18 2021, @10:26PM (2 children)
Are they? Are they REALLY?
Sounds like Facebook is being entrapped because the copyright owners are the ones putting the links to their copyrighted works on Facebook. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 19 2021, @01:41PM (1 child)
I would say that sentence was phrased improperly. Let's change it up:
There. That appears to be more accurate. Facebook has created a marketplace for the exchange of information. People do exchange information in this market. Facebook profits from this market. But, Facebook fails to share that profit with the people who generate said information.
Sometimes, you have to think around the box. Facebook is still responsible for the copyright violations, and Facebook alone profits from the violations.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday February 19 2021, @07:37PM
Facebook may be profiting, but not through their own actions then. So the correct answer was to block these news outlets and government sites from sharing those specific links which infringed.
So from another point of view, Facebook is blocking the infringing content now. That was an option available to them, and it still sounds like the news outlets and government sites are pissed that Facebook didn't choose to pay them for it instead.
I disagree with forcing Facebook, or SoylentNews, to pay for links to copyrighted content when those links are posted by others. I strongly disagree that posting a link is a violation of the copyright. Going even further, taking an excerpt of the news article (not all of it, or the most important part of it), would fall under Fair Use.
As much as I dislike Facebook and social networks in general here, I also strongly dislike the abuse of copyright.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Mykl on Thursday February 18 2021, @10:14PM (2 children)
Not quite.
The new law is intended to allow for-profit companies to extract money from search engines who substantially re-print their content without the consumer needing to visit their site. Examples are when Google includes significant amounts of content in the search results screen rather than a single line. The Government never intended for this to cover their own websites.
Facebook decided to say "Fuck you" and shut down everything based on the broadest interpretation they could come up with (and to be fair, the new law does not clearly define what is "News"). They are now being called on that because they have shut down the pages of public health departments, fire etc.
I don't have a side for this one. One one hand, news organisations are clearly rent-seeking and being dicks about it. If they wanted to avoid their sites being scraped by Google, Facebook etc then all they need to do is to create a robots.txt file and opt out. But they want to have their cake (be included on the search results) and eat it (get visitors) too. Google, Facebook etc are also clearly not just linking to news sites, but are actively attempting to ensure that eyeballs remain within their domains and are not leaving their kingdoms. If that means those news sites miss out on being paid, too bad for them.
A pox on both their houses.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday February 18 2021, @10:30PM (1 child)
See that's what I'm trying to find out. Did Facebook actively curate the content and put it on the Facebook page for that business? That sounds like the shitty crap that Grubhub pulls which pisses me off. Last time I used grubhub, I had a problem with an order, called the restaurant, and they screamed at me that they don't deliver. Grubhub is worse, because they're taking domain names and basically setting up the business without the business's knowledge in some cases.
If Facebook is actively scraping and automatically creating pages, then I would have some sympathy for the copyright holders. If Facebook is allowing the businesses to do it themselves, then that is something different.
Does Facebook offer a search engine service like Google? That's an entirely different situation.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 19 2021, @01:45PM
How is that worse than Facebook shadow accounts? People who have never in their lives clicked on a Facebook link are tracked by Facebook via accounts set up by that person's friends and acquaintances.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @05:50PM
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Thursday February 18 2021, @01:34PM
It's incredible how Facebook jumped on this almost immediately, yet for the last five years (at least) aided and abetted the sabotage of the United States political system, as well for who knows how long its wholesale selling-out of users' data with no recourse [wikipedia.org].
Yeah, yeah...X<A*B*C blah blah blah.
(Score: 2) by Bethany.Saint on Thursday February 18 2021, @01:45PM (3 children)
Facebook is pushing back, Google is pushing back, Microsoft is jumping into this as well. It's all typical posturing to try to push thing is different directions. There will be more back and forth, then of deal making, and then something will be hashed out. But I think this is a much bolder move than Google's end run or Microsoft's cynical ploy saying they'll pay in order to gain market share.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @01:53PM
I just want to know how to get Facebook to do this everywhere else. The news media are complicit - they need to shut down both their Facebook presence and requiring users to log in using Facebook.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @02:09PM (1 child)
This is fine. Australia isn't real.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @06:22AM
I live in Australia...and I think you might be right...
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @02:16PM (5 children)
"The social network, which has been combating misinformation... "
Uh, no.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 18 2021, @08:13PM (4 children)
"The social network", which is tearing apart the fabric of society around the globe.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 19 2021, @02:51AM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 19 2021, @01:48PM
I might agree with that statement. However, you don't tear shit down before you have something better to replace it with. Social media today is tearing shit apart, with nothing to offer in return.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @07:06PM (1 child)
No they don't. How pompous of you to think you can rule the world. I hated Islam, a lot, there are many historical grievances. But then over the last few years I realized I have a lot more in common with them than I do with most of the morons on this board. My vision of the future is the Religions of the world, coming together, in peace, to rid the world of degenerates.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 19 2021, @11:13PM
Here's a simple solution. Fix Saudi Arabia. Then this avenue for my alleged pomposity won't be there to vex you.
Also let us keep in mind that Saudi Arabia does its own nation building in Yemen. If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander.
Your loss.
Perhaps you should use that vision to wonder why God favors the degenerates so much more than you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @02:26PM
but of course nobody in Australia actually heard about it...
Seriously, where was the Zuck four years ago, eh? How about doin' the world a similar favor in this hemisphere dude?
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Thursday February 18 2021, @02:35PM (2 children)
Anything Facebook is unimportant to me and I don't understand why authorities would put anything of relevance on it. They're not going to reach me there.
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Thursday February 18 2021, @09:18PM (1 child)
So tell me, what does Facebook look like in Lynx?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @03:53AM
Who cares?
(Score: 2) by Fishscene on Thursday February 18 2021, @03:03PM (6 children)
Australian news industry collapses as people submit their own news to share on the largest news-sharing platform (fake or otherwise) instead of linking to websites which host the news due to a new law that was enacted...
I know I am not God, because every time I pray to Him, it's because I'm not perfect and thankful for what He's done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @05:26PM (4 children)
More likely people will go directly to their favourite news sources and text links and comments to their friends.
People are adaptable. Facebook isn’t. Their business model is dependent on surveillance capilalism, which is dependent on them inserting themselves between users and news sources. Look at how they’re freaking out over the privacy features in iOS 14,5.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @06:27PM (3 children)
Wait... so you're saying some people still read the news?
I thought we all just found headlines that confirmed our biases, clipped, shared, and then bitched at each other kind of just assuming the other 1900 words of the article.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @08:07PM (1 child)
I’m saying most people are quite capable of bookmarking their favourite news sources and checking them once in a while, completely bypassing Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Instagram. And undermining both surveillance capitalism and wannabe influencers in the bargain.
Or they can just have multiple tabs open and cycle trough them as they feel the desire.
After all, how do you get here?
(Score: 2) by Fishscene on Thursday February 18 2021, @09:37PM
If only we had some kind of technology where we could subscribe to various websites have it show up in a feed of some kind that would show feeds from multiple sources. Ideally, it wouldn't be tied to any particular website either.. something like RSS maybe?
I know I am not God, because every time I pray to Him, it's because I'm not perfect and thankful for what He's done.
(Score: 2) by jb on Friday February 19 2021, @02:48AM
Very few people ever read the news directly. That's what rn(1) was for.
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Saturday February 20 2021, @04:35AM
Should we bow when a Facebook executive walks in?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by arslan on Friday February 19 2021, @03:39AM (1 child)
This is a win win for every Australian. Now we know the only news in FB is fake news!
Now we just need every social media platform to follow suit!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 19 2021, @02:45PM
1. Create a Facebook page with links to my website.
2. Demand Facebook pay me for my own links to my own website.
3. Profit!