SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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]