Facebook goes Nuclear, Banning All News Posts in Australia

[upnorth]

Content source

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/facebook-bans-all-australian-news-content-over-pay-to-link-proposal/

Facebook has gone nuclear in its long-running battle with the Australian government over news content. Australia is considering legislation that would require Facebook to pay to link to Australian news stories. In response, Facebook has announced a wide-ranging ban on users linking Australian news content.

The ban means that Facebook users in Australia can no longer make posts that link to news articles—either in the Australian media or internationally. Meanwhile, users outside of Australia can't post links to Australian news sources. The ban has already gone into effect, as I discovered when I tried to post a link to The Sydney Morning Herald on Facebook:

Spoiler

Facebook goes nuclear, banning all news posts in Australia

Facebook says Australia "fundamentally misunderstands" its relationship to news.

arstechnica.com

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

And this is a bad thing...

 

[ZeePriest]

@venustus

 

[Venustus]

Why Google and Facebook are being asked to pay for the news they use – explainer

The digital platforms aren’t happy and have warned of dire consequences if the draft legislation is passed into law

www.theguardian.com

Basically Facebook is attempting to bully the Australian Parliament right now, using Australians as their fodder.

 

[Cortex]

I strongly dislike bullies & I always have - Well done Australia for standing up to them it's time someone did !

 

[Cleo]

Scrolling back over my Nanna's Fabebook feed for the last few months the only "news" I saw was missing person or bushfire alerts and covid rule updates.
I'm pretty sure the legacy media would just take the hit and let those be linked free for all.

 

[SeriousHoax]

I have some confusion here. But first of all I must say, I'm not good at understanding political affairs so correct me if I say something wrong.

So to me, it looks like Australian gov was & is asking money from Facebook and Google for letting people share their news sites and other similar things on their platforms and using them in other services like Google news. Google, Facebook, etc earn money from their services so Australian gov think it's only fare that they should share some of that in a way.
But isn't the opposite also happening? Because of Facebook, Google search, google news etc services these websites, news articles comes into users feed and because of this the users are engaging in those links, visiting the sites, reading & watching contents, sharing with friends & family, forums etc. And because of this, those particular site owners, organizations are also making money through ads, etc. Without Google & Facebook those sites wouldn't get such many visitors. I don't know the percentage but surely most of the visitors would probably disappear without Google & Facebook.
I for example almost never manually visit any of our local news sites. But I visit those when an interesting news article appears on my Google feed, Facebook feed, Twitter feed, etc.

So it's definitely not one sided. Both parties are benefiting from it, both are making money. So suddenly Australia wanting to monetize this seems very odd to me. Unless there's a legal issue which forces facebook & google to pay, I don't see the Australian gov winning against them.
If I'm missing something here, if there's more to this then I would be happy to learn about it if someone explains.

 

[enaph]

So Facebook wants to share news for free but at the same time they want to monetize every single click on their own website?
I've seen their rise and now I want to see their fall. Facebook is evil.

 

[Viking]

This is a huge issue here on talk back radio today !!

 

[Cleo]

I have some confusion here. But first of all I must say, I'm not good at understanding political affairs so correct me if I say something wrong.

So to me, it looks like Australian gov was & is asking money from Facebook and Google for letting people share their news sites and other similar things on their platforms and using them in other services like Google news. Google, Facebook, etc earn money from their services so Australian gov think it's only fare that they should share some of that in a way.
But isn't the opposite also happening? Because of Facebook, Google search, google news etc services these websites, news articles comes into users feed and because of this the users are engaging in those links, visiting the sites, reading & watching contents, sharing with friends & family, forums etc. And because of this, those particular site owners, organizations are also making money through ads, etc. Without Google & Facebook those sites wouldn't get such many visitors. I don't know the percentage but surely most of the visitors would probably disappear without Google & Facebook.
I for example almost never manually visit any of our local news sites. But I visit those when an interesting news article appears on my Google feed, Facebook feed, Twitter feed, etc.

So it's definitely not one sided. Both parties are benefiting from it, both are making money. So suddenly Australia wanting to monetize this seems very odd to me. Unless there's a legal issue which forces facebook & google to pay, I don't see the Australian gov winning against them.
If I'm missing something here, if there's more to this then I would be happy to learn about it if someone explains.

The issue is mainly the links that are not clicked I think. Facebook would show enough of an article in a post to allow people to get the gist of it without clicking.
I don't think the main objection is to sharing naked urls to Australian media sites, just to showing the target of the link in the Facebook feed (even in part).

 

[ravi prakash saini]

in my opinion something must be done ,since all companies like Facebook are considering themselves above the laws of the land

 

[Ville]

Australia must do what Australia must do, but I don't like the idea. It will end up curbing any start-up from ever creating a social network or a bright new search engine. In the long game, it will strengthen Facebook and Google, no matter if they are paying for the news link or not.

 

[SeriousHoax]

The issue is mainly the links that are not clicked I think. Facebook would show enough of an article in a post to allow people to get the gist of it without clicking.
I don't think the main objection is to sharing naked urls to Australian media sites, just to showing the target of the link in the Facebook feed (even in part).

Oh, I see. In that case I can understand their frustration. Let's see what happens.

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

I don't understand both sides... regarding Google specially, why would Google pay news agencies/papers/etc. to index them? They index everybody and if it's not for Google then huge part of the web will be unknown to us...

Regarding FB. why should they pay? It's not FB themselves publishing news, it's users...
I'm all for the tech companies being charged various fees, but in this case I don't think this is right.

 

[forgottenuser79643]

I don't understand both sides... regarding Google specially, why would Google pay news agencies/papers/etc. to index them? They index everybody and if it's not for Google then huge part of the web will be unknown to us...

Regarding FB. why should they pay? It's not FB themselves publishing news, it's users...
I'm all for the tech companies being charged various fees, but in this case I don't think this is right.

Exactly. I got a buddy in Australia that says the same thing. Straight up blocking-/Banning is not the right move. If it's the policy of that news station to charge a fee, then the user need to pay the fee and not Facebook --It being their platform-- they also should've made that clear. Should Facebook have been charged? Not, unless they are going to host the news themselves. Should Facebook have respected the stations' policy and made it clear to the users instead? Definitely.

In the end it happened on their platform, and as time went more and more people use it for news spreading purposes. In my opinion you either act the part and uphold whatever terms are applicable, or you stay out of it. I am all for charging fees, if it's applicable to the situation, but this is just straight up not right.

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

There are circumstances where you can ask for payment. For example Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and Apple News. These are content-centric platforms, if nobody creates quality content, then nobody will use the platform either.
But in the case of Google Search engine and Facebook, with or without the Aussie news, people will still use it anyway. This is not the main purpose of the platform.

 

[forgottenuser79643]

I am not from Australia, so I have no clue how important this issue is for the Australian users. But my Aussie buddy told me, that some of the more remote areas and towns away from the cities, rely on sources like Twitter and Facebook to get 'consistent' news. Other than the 3 fixed times (or whatever) the news channel pops up on the television, if it's remote enough they might not even have it(?).

Then again, I have no clue of the situation, for all I know he might have been exaggerating a bit.

 

[ForgottenSeer 89360]

I am not from Australia, so I have no clue how important this issue is for the Australian users. But my Aussie buddy told me, that some of the more remote areas and towns away from the cities, rely on sources like Twitter and Facebook to get 'consistent' news. Other than the 3 fixed times (or whatever) the news channel pops up on the television, if it's remote enough they might not even have it(?).

Then again, I have no clue of the situation, for all I know he might have been exaggerating a bit.

Well if that's so, this is a further indication that many people don't open official news sources, meaning sharing of the content is crucial for its ability to reach more people.
So the same question arises again, why should Google and Facebook be charged?

 

[Digmor Crusher]

Bah, could care less if Facebook just disappeared, would never use it. And why would anyone get news off there, isn't it like Fake News city?? And by fake news I mean the kind that Trumps minions follow. Tax em all I say, before all local news stations and newspapers disappear.

 

[Nightwalker]

I have to be the devil's advocate here (well, I'm technically one), but I agree with Facebook's stance in this case.

I see nothing in this situation other than politicians using legislative power to extort resources (local looby).

I don't like this tendency to see the world in a "black and white" way, "oppressive and oppressed"; just because Google and Facebook represent the supremacy of capitalism does not mean that this stupid type of extortion must be accepted.

In my view, none of the companies should give in to this pathetic attempt to control content, it is the kind of thing that sets terrible precedents for a free internet (pay to use hyperlinks in the future?)

If the Media companies are not satisfied with the current arrangement then what I agree that they can do is ask not to be linked on Facebook, which was gracefully done by the latter.


Ps: I dont use anything from Facebook (Instagram/WhatsApp and so on), couldnt care less about them, it's an ideological issue.