Australia and Facebook....

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Discussion

tangerine_sedge

4,699 posts

217 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
paulrockliffe said:
It's slightly more nuanced because the legacy news don't own the stories, if they don't put their wording of what happened on Facebook then it leaves a gap for me to start my own media company and post the story there myself and take the advertising revenue via linking from Facebook etc. I can make it work because I don't have all the legacy costs associated with printing and distributing a paper or broadcasting on TV.

Brilliant! Please do set up your own business doing this. I'll then just scrape your content, rebrand it, then resell to FB et al undercutting you. A win for me, but how will your business survive now that I'm cheaper than you and offering the same content?

paulrockliffe said:
The media organisations don't really have a choice but to post their content to Facebook because it's the only way to keep new organisations from gaining traction. Why read the news from me when you could read the BBC's version?
Writing news stories takes time and money, the content creators should get rewarded suitably. They do that by running adverts on THEIR content, why should facebook take a cut for automagically scraping the content and hosting on their pages?

paulrockliffe said:
Obviously the answer is to stop printing newspapers as there simply isn't a viable model that competes with online-only media. The Australian Government have bowed to lobbying for protection for the established media. Of course Facebooks response is that they're not going to subsidise the Australian media.
This is not paper vs web, this is FB scraping content and hosting on FB pages, with FB getting the advertising revenue.

paulrockliffe said:
The losers are Facebook's users, so while I'm all for appropriate control of the likes of Facebook, I'm perfectly happy for them to stand up to Government policies like this that have nothing to do with anything other than protectionism.
The losers are the media companies who are not getting fair recompense for the usage of their content.

survivalist

5,614 posts

189 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
768 said:
FB just doesn't want to play at any price, why should they have to?
This. Facebook will be able ascertain fairly quickly if a lack of news articles on their platform has an impact on their ad revenue. If it does, then they can evaluate the benefits of paying to play. If it doesn’t, then why pay for something that doesn’t benefit them.

I suspect that the Australian government and established media outlets are worried that it won’t have a big impact, which is why they are talking about censorship.

CoolHands

18,496 posts

194 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
FunkyNige said:
rxe said:
I’m also not a Facebook News user, but that does look OK. The key point (for the publishers) is who gets the ad revenue - is that second pic actually the independent site, or something still inside Facebook? A lot of the time they will redirect the content so it looks like something else but is in fact coming through Facebook.
It looks like it's the actual Independent site but ads from Facebook, if I press 'Report this ad' I get the Facebook report ad feature and the 'Ad Policies' link brings up the Facebook ad policies. If I click the 3 dots in the top right then 'Open in Browser' I get the actual Independent site in Safari, the ads are in the same place but served by 'Teads' and Taboola. It also asks me to register.
If Facebook are serving up the Independent site but putting their own ads on (which looks to be the case but I can't be certain) that is really sneaky and I can see why the papers wouldn't want that happening.
fk FB. I can’t believe anyone on here thinks this is ok - they’re not just showing the content of other organisations - they’re rebranding the pages with their own adverts and delivering them in a way that still appears to be the original suppliers pages and adverts, when it isn’t.

I hate FB but annoyingly have to have an account for work related groups. But I’d never install their app on my phone! I feel dirty just logging on via the website.

AlvinSultana

858 posts

148 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
This looks very bad for FB.

Their position is that if we cannot steal your IP and make vast profits from it we will take our ball home ?

I also find the “its not how the internet works” type of statements utterly shameful. What they really mean is “we built an empire stealling whatever we want, and we want to carry on doing it”.

Its not often I agree with Murdoch, but he has been a lone voice on this for the last 10 years at least. Why should media organisations foot the bill for news coverage only for big tech to steal it ?


Pommy

14,229 posts

215 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
768 said:
Pommy said:
and closed off more than just news in some quasi protest hoping to curry favour with the court of public opinion.
Some other pages were caught up in it, but they're fixing those?


Pommy said:
The Australian Govt is making rules to benefit its own people and companies and are quite right to do so. FB just doesn't want to pay to play.
FB just doesn't want to play at any price, why should they have to?

This seems such an obvious outcome. If any free service on the internet starts charging they lose customers, they can't reasonably expect to keep them all, or even most of them. If the Australian government wants to benefit it's own people it should try something less cack-handed.
This, this is where you misunderstand.

Firstly they have fixed 'Some' sites like bushfire alerts and politician sites but they've left a lot others down. They powerplayed this to shut down a lot to make a point. Not just a ' oh, our mistake, sorry

Secondly, theyre not proposing user pays so no, they won't charge and lose customers. The costs are to be paid for by FB.

Google have launched their news service but aren't charging users.

What FB have done isnt just to have said we won't pay. Theyve not come out and said ' this isn't our model so we won't offer news', theyve just went dark and have tried to play hardball to push the point, not negotiate or discuss a solution that works for all. That's why they're getting slammed.

What you appear to be missing is that they didnt just opt out and announce their new no-news model. They actively went 'fk you' to the Govt and wanted to show their power play and in doing so affected a lot of pages unrelated to the matter at hand in an intentional act of grievance.

Arrogant Is a polite description.



wisbech

2,939 posts

120 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
Yeah - also in Australia. FB's actions have managed to pretty much unite the country as much as an Ashes tour.

Sure, they have the right not to pay and not to take the feeds. But the idiocy of cutting off things like the Met office, fire alerts using the excuse 'our algorithms did it' is amazing.

I think for FB, Australia can be sacrificed (its a small market) - they probably want to 'encouragez les autres' by making an example of us. But even this may backfire, the Australians have been approached by the Indian government for advice/ sharing on what they have done. And that is a big market...

citizensm1th

8,371 posts

136 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
Governments, politicians and businesses love using social media as a source of free advertising.

Yet now some of them want social media to pay them so that they can pump out their messages to social media's audience.

I'm not supprised fb said fk you to the crims.

If you want access to the Facebook user base as a political organisation or as a business you have to pay a price either by letting them promote your content and take the advertising or you pay them a fee.

I am only surprised that fb has not demanded that of organisations using face book to sell stuff before now.

I'm sure murdock and his like would be very happy to give all and sundry free advertising space in his rags in return.

I really don't think Mr and Mrs crim will be leaving Facebook because thay can't find out the latest guff of hot air from murdock or a politician.

TwigtheWonderkid

43,248 posts

149 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
gottans said:
I think the Australian government are in the right on this. Facebook are keeping the user inside the Facebook site but using someone else's content to do this.

Worth noting, this is not content that a media organisation has uploaded themselves to Facebook but stories scraped from the media organisations own websites.

I think it is no different to you buying a car and allowing anyone to drive it but a company decides they can make money out of your generosity, keep the revenue and give you as the car owner nothing but still expect you to accept them to continue earning off your back.

I think Facebook are taking the piss and rather than accept they need to behave fairly throw their toys out of the pram. Do Facebook see this as a serious thread to their business? I think so and are hoping that users who can't live without their fix will force the Australian government to back down. I can see Facebook's business model unravelling somewhat in the future.
Spoke to my son about this case. He works for a news outlet, whose content is used by Facebook. Not only are they happy for Facebook to use their stuff free of cost, they are actually quite relieved they don't have to pay Facebook to use it. As Facebook's usage drives far more traffic to their website, so they benefit. It's symbiotic. My son explained it to me as follows:

Local Council: The library is no longer free. Anyone taking out a book will be forced to negotiate a fee with the author.
People: But it's always been free.
LC: Not any more. The authors need to be paid.
People: But the authors seem quite happy. Yes, we take out their books free, but that often encourages us to by other books of theirs, and we also recommend stuff to other people that we've read, and they buy books.
LC: Don't care. You will pay them from now on.
People: OK, we hear you. You've made your position clear.
2 days later
LC: why is no one using the library.
People: You said we had to pay, we don't want to pay, so we've stopped using it.
LC: This is a declaration of war, a vicious attack on the LC. How dare you think you can treat us like this, who do you jumped up self important lot think you are.
People: confused


wisbech

2,939 posts

120 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Spoke to my son about this case. He works for a news outlet, whose content is used by Facebook. Not only are they happy for Facebook to use their stuff free of cost, they are actually quite relieved they don't have to pay Facebook to use it. As Facebook's usage drives far more traffic to their website, so they benefit. It's symbiotic. My son explained it to me as follows:

Local Council: The library is no longer free. Anyone taking out a book will be forced to negotiate a fee with the author.
People: But it's always been free.
LC: Not any more. The authors need to be paid.
People: But the authors seem quite happy. Yes, we take out their books free, but that often encourages us to by other books of theirs, and we also recommend stuff to other people that we've read, and they buy books.
LC: Don't care. You will pay them from now on.
People: OK, we hear you. You've made your position clear.
2 days later
LC: why is no one using the library.
People: You said we had to pay, we don't want to pay, so we've stopped using it.
LC: This is a declaration of war, a vicious attack on the LC. How dare you think you can treat us like this, who do you jumped up self important lot think you are.
People: confused
Except libraries do pay authors of the books that are taken out a per loan fee, as well as the initial purchase price... (paid for indirectly by council tax) So the analogy is completely wrong. It is called "Public Lending Right" and has been in place in the UK since 1979 - to compensate authors for the books that they don't sell, because people borrow them from the library,

And in this case, the OZ govt isn't trying to get the users to pay FB, they are trying to get the library (FB) to pay the authors a loan fee (which the users will pay for indirectly by advertising)


Edited by wisbech on Friday 19th February 12:00

i4got

5,624 posts

77 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
wisbech said:
Except libraries do pay authors of the books that are taken out a per loan fee, as well as the initial purchase price... (paid for indirectly by council tax) So the analogy is completely wrong. It is called "Public Lending Right" and has been in place in the UK since 1979 - to compensate authors for the books that they don't sell, because people borrow them from the library,

And in this case, the OZ govt isn't trying to get the users to pay FB, they are trying to get the library (FB) to pay the authors a loan fee (which the users will pay for indirectly by advertising)


Edited by wisbech on Friday 19th February 12:00
So what is wrong with FB deciding they don't want to use or pay for the content?

Like a lot of people I use FB for group membership. I don't use it to surf news sites so wouldn't even notice if news sites disappeared. Google is different - it is the main route to the new sites and stories.

I totally understand FB deciding that most people will not care if news is disabled on its site.



768

13,601 posts

95 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
Pommy said:
768 said:
Pommy said:
and closed off more than just news in some quasi protest hoping to curry favour with the court of public opinion.
Some other pages were caught up in it, but they're fixing those?


Pommy said:
The Australian Govt is making rules to benefit its own people and companies and are quite right to do so. FB just doesn't want to pay to play.
FB just doesn't want to play at any price, why should they have to?

This seems such an obvious outcome. If any free service on the internet starts charging they lose customers, they can't reasonably expect to keep them all, or even most of them. If the Australian government wants to benefit it's own people it should try something less cack-handed.
This, this is where you misunderstand.

Firstly they have fixed 'Some' sites like bushfire alerts and politician sites but they've left a lot others down. They powerplayed this to shut down a lot to make a point. Not just a ' oh, our mistake, sorry

Secondly, theyre not proposing user pays so no, they won't charge and lose customers. The costs are to be paid for by FB.

Google have launched their news service but aren't charging users.

What FB have done isnt just to have said we won't pay. Theyve not come out and said ' this isn't our model so we won't offer news', theyve just went dark and have tried to play hardball to push the point, not negotiate or discuss a solution that works for all. That's why they're getting slammed.

What you appear to be missing is that they didnt just opt out and announce their new no-news model. They actively went 'fk you' to the Govt and wanted to show their power play and in doing so affected a lot of pages unrelated to the matter at hand in an intentional act of grievance.

Arrogant Is a polite description.
No, you misunderstand me.

I'm not suggesting anything about users being charged in this case, just pointing out that the government do wish a cost to be imposed on Facebook for a service they seem not to be interested in providing at a cost.

If Facebook don't want that cost, I see nothing wrong with closing that down, nothing wrong with them not negotiating a price - I see absolutely zero obligation on them to provide news at any price if they don't wish to. Or to provide notice of closing down any aspect of their service in protest or just on a whim. They do not work for the news agencies, nor the Australian government.

You may think in cutting off more than news it was a deliberate move and not just collateral damage, but that's an inevitability. And if the government don't like Facebook's actions here, perhaps they shouldn't have provoked it.

Arrogance is found in expecting to be able to make Facebook pay for something it doesn't see value in.

768

13,601 posts

95 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
survivalist said:
768 said:
FB just doesn't want to play at any price, why should they have to?
This. Facebook will be able ascertain fairly quickly if a lack of news articles on their platform has an impact on their ad revenue. If it does, then they can evaluate the benefits of paying to play. If it doesn’t, then why pay for something that doesn’t benefit them.

I suspect that the Australian government and established media outlets are worried that it won’t have a big impact, which is why they are talking about censorship.
I suspect they already had a strong handle on the impact. It wouldn't surprise me if their ad revenue has gone up over this.

wisbech

2,939 posts

120 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
i4got said:
So what is wrong with FB deciding they don't want to use or pay for the content?

Like a lot of people I use FB for group membership. I don't use it to surf news sites so wouldn't even notice if news sites disappeared. Google is different - it is the main route to the new sites and stories.

I totally understand FB deciding that most people will not care if news is disabled on its site.
Nothing (in my view) Same as a library doesn't have to buy/ stock all books.

I think FB are within their rights not to buy/ show news content. Where they have shot themselves in the foot is by hamfistedly also not showing 'public information' sites (like weather, fire risks) Yes, I guess you could argue they are also news - but it has made them look idiots, especially as they have been scrambling to unban them

TwigtheWonderkid

43,248 posts

149 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
wisbech said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Spoke to my son about this case. He works for a news outlet, whose content is used by Facebook. Not only are they happy for Facebook to use their stuff free of cost, they are actually quite relieved they don't have to pay Facebook to use it. As Facebook's usage drives far more traffic to their website, so they benefit. It's symbiotic. My son explained it to me as follows:

Local Council: The library is no longer free. Anyone taking out a book will be forced to negotiate a fee with the author.
People: But it's always been free.
LC: Not any more. The authors need to be paid.
People: But the authors seem quite happy. Yes, we take out their books free, but that often encourages us to by other books of theirs, and we also recommend stuff to other people that we've read, and they buy books.
LC: Don't care. You will pay them from now on.
People: OK, we hear you. You've made your position clear.
2 days later
LC: why is no one using the library.
People: You said we had to pay, we don't want to pay, so we've stopped using it.
LC: This is a declaration of war, a vicious attack on the LC. How dare you think you can treat us like this, who do you jumped up self important lot think you are.
People: confused
Except libraries do pay authors of the books that are taken out a per loan fee, as well as the initial purchase price... (paid for indirectly by council tax) So the analogy is completely wrong. It is called "Public Lending Right" and has been in place in the UK since 1979 - to compensate authors for the books that they don't sell, because people borrow them from the library,

And in this case, the OZ govt isn't trying to get the users to pay FB, they are trying to get the library (FB) to pay the authors a loan fee (which the users will pay for indirectly by advertising)


Edited by wisbech on Friday 19th February 12:00
OK, my son (and I) weren't aware of how libraries work. But he is aware about how newsfeeds into Facebook work. It's a symbiotic relationship. Facebook benefits by providing news content to their users thus increasing the appeal of Facebook, and the news providers benefit by the much wider audience that then increases awareness and drives traffic to the news provider's offerings.

His view is normally is costs a lot of money to bring your product or work to the attention of millions. Facebook provide this service free!



Ean218

1,959 posts

249 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
TwigtheWonderkid said:
OK, my son (and I) weren't aware of how libraries work. But he is aware about how newsfeeds into Facebook work. It's a symbiotic relationship. Facebook benefits by providing news content to their users thus increasing the appeal of Facebook, and the news providers benefit by the much wider audience that then increases awareness and drives traffic to the news provider's offerings.

His view is normally is costs a lot of money to bring your product or work to the attention of millions. Facebook provide this service free!
It appears you don't know how Facebook works either.

Facebook benefits by charging for ads generated by the posted content. Getting people to see ads is all they care about, they don't give a stuff about the actual content.

menousername

2,106 posts

141 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
Again though those weather sites etc are available via their own websites

FB has no obligation to share the content. If there are costs involved in doing so - behind the scenes costs such as remaining compliant, IT costs proportioned to it etc- FB could also charge a fee for access if it wanted.

Again the outrage is misplaced - its not a public service provider.






menousername

2,106 posts

141 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
Ean218 said:
It appears you don't know how Facebook works either.

Facebook benefits by charging for ads generated by the posted content. Getting people to see ads is all they care about, they don't give a stuff about the actual content.
Of course and FB users get their services for free. Change that and FB users need to pay a subscription.

In fact having built up a fairly dominant position FB could have gone down that route if it wanted


TwigtheWonderkid

43,248 posts

149 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
Ean218 said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
OK, my son (and I) weren't aware of how libraries work. But he is aware about how newsfeeds into Facebook work. It's a symbiotic relationship. Facebook benefits by providing news content to their users thus increasing the appeal of Facebook, and the news providers benefit by the much wider audience that then increases awareness and drives traffic to the news provider's offerings.

His view is normally is costs a lot of money to bring your product or work to the attention of millions. Facebook provide this service free!
It appears you don't know how Facebook works either.

Facebook benefits by charging for ads generated by the posted content. Getting people to see ads is all they care about, they don't give a stuff about the actual content.
If the actual content was crap, fewer people would look at Facebook, and they'd not be able to generate the same level of ad revenue. So of course they care about content.

But all this boils down to the Australian govt telling Facebook that if they wanted to carry on doing something, they had to pay, and Facebook saying "Ok, we'll stop doing it". And now the govt are pissed because they wanted Facebook to carry on doing it and to pay. Well tough luck. Facebook had 2 choices, and they've chosen one of them.

Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Friday 19th February 13:00

98elise

26,376 posts

160 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
wisbech said:
i4got said:
So what is wrong with FB deciding they don't want to use or pay for the content?

Like a lot of people I use FB for group membership. I don't use it to surf news sites so wouldn't even notice if news sites disappeared. Google is different - it is the main route to the new sites and stories.

I totally understand FB deciding that most people will not care if news is disabled on its site.
Nothing (in my view) Same as a library doesn't have to buy/ stock all books.

I think FB are within their rights not to buy/ show news content. Where they have shot themselves in the foot is by hamfistedly also not showing 'public information' sites (like weather, fire risks) Yes, I guess you could argue they are also news - but it has made them look idiots, especially as they have been scrambling to unban them
Are the Aus government paying Facebook to distribute it's public information, or do they expect it to do it for free? Facebook is a business, not a public service.

If it's being asked to pay for so something that it doesn't want to, it should have the option to decline and block the content.





rxe

6,700 posts

102 months

Friday 19th February 2021
quotequote all
menousername said:
Of course and FB users get their services for free. Change that and FB users need to pay a subscription.

In fact having built up a fairly dominant position FB could have gone down that route if it wanted
The analogy I’d use could be based on this site. A load of content is put here by people, and hosted on a site that presumably generates some material bills. If I came along and took that content and re-hosted it, stripping PHs ads out, and replacing them with my own and put it all on my (very popular) website - would that seem fair? I think not. That is precisely what Facebook are doing.