18 votes

Facebook will ban Australian users from sharing or viewing news

15 comments

  1. screenbeard
    Link
    I have no love for Facebook, and I think the shotgun overreaction by banning hundreds of community groups was a misstep, but this is the right call by Facebook. Our govt is transparently doing the...

    I have no love for Facebook, and I think the shotgun overreaction by banning hundreds of community groups was a misstep, but this is the right call by Facebook.

    Our govt is transparently doing the bidding of a failing oligarch and it's so painfully stupid to watch. I'm yet to hear a compelling argument why sending traffic to a failing media company's paywalls is some sort of privilege their competition should be happy to pay for.

    13 votes
  2. [4]
    cfabbro
    (edited )
    Link
    Related article on Platformer by Casey Newton from today: Facebook calls Australia's bluff - But Google gives in. What's next?

    Related article on Platformer by Casey Newton from today:
    Facebook calls Australia's bluff - But Google gives in. What's next?

    10 votes
    1. Kuromantis
      Link Parent
      I feel like there are a few portions of this that should be highlighted:

      I feel like there are a few portions of this that should be highlighted:

      I’d feel better about this if publishers said a single word about how much of their new Google revenue that they planned to spend on journalists’ salaries, or news gathering.

      They didn’t, though, and why would they? Australia’s bargaining code doesn’t say one word about requiring that any of this money be spent on journalism, either.

      Certainly the execution of the ban left something to be desired.

      Rather than building a blacklist of news sites to restrict, Facebook tried using its machine learning systems to identify news publishers, and the systems went predictably haywire. There were reports that government and emergency pages, nonprofit groups, and the Bureau of Meteorology could no longer share. Given how long the possibility of restricting links has loomed, you’d think Facebook would have better prepared for it to arrive.

      I wish Australia would take Facebook’s rejection as a sign it should rethink its approach to media regulation entirely. It could just tax companies based on their revenues, for example. It could earmark those revenues to support journalism — nonprofit public media, even, which has consistently been shown to have powerful civic benefits. Or it could pursue a bargaining code that requires big media conglomerates to create and support jobs in journalism, rather than simply accept tens of millions of dollars and spend them however they like — or just return it to shareholders.

      In reality, though, none of that seems likely to happen. Google’s capitulation means that Australian crony capitalism is now likely to be exported worldwide. Legacy media outlets will become richer — and also more dependent on the tech giants that they excoriate daily for having too much power over them. All the while, the media industry will continue to consolidate, and it will be harder to get or keep a job in journalism.

      4 votes
    2. [2]
      skybrian
      Link Parent
      Google cut a deal, but I am wondering if it actually meets the terms of Australia's rather invasive new law? I suspect this might be a move that sets them up for further negotiation.

      Google cut a deal, but I am wondering if it actually meets the terms of Australia's rather invasive new law?

      I suspect this might be a move that sets them up for further negotiation.

      2 votes
      1. DanBC
        Link Parent
        This just feels like malicious compliance, with the aim of making the public react.

        Certainly the execution of the ban left something to be desired.

        Rather than building a blacklist of news sites to restrict, Facebook tried using its machine learning systems to identify news publishers, and the systems went predictably haywire. There were reports that government and emergency pages, nonprofit groups, and the Bureau of Meteorology could no longer share. Given how long the possibility of restricting links has loomed, you’d think Facebook would have better prepared for it to arrive.

        This just feels like malicious compliance, with the aim of making the public react.

        7 votes
  3. heady
    Link
    well I have been owned How optimistic I am about the consequences remains to be seen

    well I have been owned

    How optimistic I am about the consequences remains to be seen

    9 votes
  4. [3]
    JXM
    Link
    Regardless of how I feel about the law that lead to this, I'm of two minds about this decision. On the one hand, it might make it harder for places like whatever the Australian equivalent of Fox...

    Regardless of how I feel about the law that lead to this, I'm of two minds about this decision.

    On the one hand, it might make it harder for places like whatever the Australian equivalent of Fox News and The Daily Caller are to spread false information.

    But it might make it easier for wild conspiracy theories and outright lies to spread organically via groups and pages, since there will be no countervailing posts from reputable news sources.

    I'd be less worried if Facebook at any sort of good track record when it comes to fact checking, but as the 2020 election cycle showed us, they care more about other things.

    5 votes
    1. [2]
      cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Rupert Murdoch (founder of News Corp/Fox News) is Australian, and that is where his media empire started and is still strongest. So I doubt this law will make a lick of difference in regard to the...

      it might make it harder for places like whatever the Australian equivalent of Fox News and The Daily Caller are to spread false information

      Rupert Murdoch (founder of News Corp/Fox News) is Australian, and that is where his media empire started and is still strongest. So I doubt this law will make a lick of difference in regard to the spread of right-wing misinformation in Australia, for exactly the reasons described in the News Corp Australia Wikipedia page.

      News Corp Australia owns approximately 142 daily, Sunday, weekly, bi-weekly and tri-weekly newspapers, of which 102 are suburban publications (including 16 in which News Corp Australia has a 50% interest). News Corp Australia publishes a nationally distributed newspaper in Australia, a metropolitan newspaper in each of the Australian cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin and groups of suburban newspapers in the suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth. The company publishes a further thirty magazine titles across Australia. According to the Finkelstein Review of Media and Media Regulation, in 2011 the group accounted for 23% of the newspaper titles in Australia.

      Their reach is already vast, and it's not just newspapers either. News Corp Aus also owns Sky News Australia, as well as a 65% stake in Foxtel.

      Although to be fair, in my admittedly limited experience with the Aus press, the stuff News Corp peddles via their platforms there is not nearly as horrible as what they're allowed to spread in the US.

      8 votes
      1. JXM
        Link Parent
        Good context. I was aware that the Murdochs are from Australia but I was more using Fox News as a general avatar for right wing media since I'm American and less knowledgeable about the media...

        Good context. I was aware that the Murdochs are from Australia but I was more using Fox News as a general avatar for right wing media since I'm American and less knowledgeable about the media situation over there than I am here.

        2 votes
  5. [2]
    MimicSquid
    Link
    Are people actually going to be upset with the publishers here? If people want news they'll go outside of Facebook, and Facebook drops a little bit in terms of how much of their lives it holds.

    Are people actually going to be upset with the publishers here? If people want news they'll go outside of Facebook, and Facebook drops a little bit in terms of how much of their lives it holds.

    3 votes
    1. skybrian
      Link Parent
      Meme sharing will continue to flourish, no reputable sources needed. Fact-checking might be a little harder, but I imagine quoting instead of linking to work around it. I wonder what happens when...

      Meme sharing will continue to flourish, no reputable sources needed. Fact-checking might be a little harder, but I imagine quoting instead of linking to work around it.

      I wonder what happens when links are shared between people inside and outside Australia?

      3 votes
  6. [2]
    skybrian
    Link
    From the article:

    From the article:

    This means that Australian publishers will be restricted from posting news content on their Facebook pages. News stories from international publishers will not be viewable by Australian Facebook users. Australian users will not be able to share or view news stories on Facebook, and Facebook users worldwide will be unable to share or view news stories from Australian publishers.

    2 votes
    1. skybrian
      Link Parent
      Meanwhile: Google will pay Murdoch-owned News Corp for the right to distribute some of its content.

      Meanwhile:

      Google will pay Murdoch-owned News Corp for the right to distribute some of its content.

      Stories from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Sunday Times and other News Corp publications from the United Kingdom and Australia will show up in special panels on the Google News app, on the search home screen on mobile phones and on Google News on desktop computers. The deal does not include Fox News, Google spokeswoman Maggie Shiels said. It covers a limited number of countries, including Australia, the U.K., France and Germany. The companies are in discussions to expand the program to the United States, Shiels said.

      Google has struck similar deals with Reuters and regional news companies in the countries where it’s operational, including another major Australian publisher. The companies won’t say how much the deals are worth, but Google has set aside $1 billion for such deals worldwide over the next three years.

      3 votes
  7. cfabbro
    (edited )
    Link
    Some related news out of Canada: Canada vows to be next country to go after Facebook to pay for news And some blog posts on the subject from someone whose opinion I greatly respect when it comes...

    Some related news out of Canada:
    Canada vows to be next country to go after Facebook to pay for news

    And some blog posts on the subject from someone whose opinion I greatly respect when it comes to Canadian Internet Legislation/Laws, Michael Geist (who was also quoted in the above Reuters article):

    The Copyright Bill That Does Nothing: Senate Bill Proposes Copyright Reform to Support Media Organizations

    Beware the Unintended Consequences: Some Warning Signs for Canada from the Australian Government Battle With Facebook

    1 vote