This bill is so backwards. If anything the news companies should be the ones paying Facebook and Google for doing free marketing for them.
Google and other social media platforms seem like the primary source of traffic for these legacy media companies. I mean a lot of news organizations upload links to their content themselves because that's how people find what to read. I reckon very few people go directly to the news websites to find articles and that's certainly not going to change because of this law in my opinion. The concept of a service provider having to pay to host links is absurd and goes against the nature of how the internet works. It's an attack on the very nature of the internet framed in a manner of "Protecting Canadian's" when in reality, the people who's pockets its meant to line ironically are the ones who are going to be hurt the most by it.
What a disaster.
I can't wait to watch how this backfires when the legacy media companies start complaining about how they are getting next to no traffic once this passes. That's not even to mention the smaller publishers who now aren't able to promote their own content on these platforms because of this bill.
The news companies don't want clicks, they want subscribers. They don't want traffic from Google News or Facebook, they want users to open their own app/newspaper directly.
I also imagine that there's a pretty low clickthrough rate for FB embeds of news articles, compared to "see headline, leave angry comment" engagement that only benefits Facebook without returning anything to the publishers.
If that's the case, whey don't they stop posting their content to social media? Is the idea with this bill to prevent a race to the bottom, where all the news organizations post their content for free in order to compete with each other?
> The news companies don't want clicks, they want subscribers.
My understanding is that news companies make their money primarily on ads. If it's subs, then why don't these news companies go entirely behind a paywall and demand google and facebook remove all links to their content. Instead, they are using government to essentially steal money from tech companies for those links.
We already went though this in Australia. It was a negotiating tactic, where they blocked news for a while before reaching a deal to pay news companies.
Isn't that what you would expect? Facebook has to pay news companies to allow their users to share news articles, Facebook doesn't want to pay a lot of money for that, so if the news companies say "too much" they just block their users from sharing news articles. If the news companies want Facebook to pay them, they have to specify a price Facebook is willing to pay, and so each party has agency in this decision.
Forcing either party to give up their agency seems wrong (like France saying Facebook has to pay and can't just leave the news content sharing market if the price is too high).
They're not "paying news companies", The Australian Government passed a law so they collect money from Facebook and give it directly to Rupert Murdoch.
The law, as written, will only ever apply to Facebook, and will only ever result in money going to Murdoch. It's really impressive.
Although in that article they are supposedly going to "make new and significant investments in regional services", today it seems they are back to cutting.
This law will require Meta to pay news companies "for posting their journalism on their platforms". What is the intent behind the law?
> "If the government can't stand up for Canadians against tech giants, who will?" said Rodriguez.
How is this "stand[ing] up for Canadians"? More like standing up for news corps. The framing of the response from Meta by Trudeau as "bullying tactics" is a bit irritating. I'd expect Meta's experiments with blocking news to be checking whether the new costs mean it's still worth for them to post news or now. I still don't really understand what the purpose of this law is.
it's standing up for Canadian news companies. this is one way
this is another more dubious way this is good for people: I think this may even improve facebook as a website: no more "news" which are just some sort "advertisement" or propaganda that looks like "news".
maybe another way to understand this move is to consider it as a way to force facebook to pay to publish a certain sort of what is essentially "government advertisement". this means it's a tax from Canada to Meta's Facebook
It's just something happens occasionally. A (neoliberal) government decides that we need X (freely available news, or something, in this case) but the free market won't provide it because is isn't profitable (news companies losing ad revenue and going bust or switching to click-bait), so they'll create a new law (not unlike copyright) as some kind of work-around to cram everything into the desired "free-market" system.
So the bill doesn't say that Canadians will no longer have access to news content on Facebook & Instagram.
The bill says that tech giants need to pay to post news content on their own website.
However, the giants then give a giant middle finger to the news outlets.
Full disclosure: I hate <please accept our cookies> News outlets <please provide your email address for our newsletter> and the way they <you have reached 5/5 articles this month, click here to get a subscription>.
*WirelessGigabit navigates to archive.is/link_to_article
... try to do everything to NOT focus on the article they just wrote...
But, looking at the history, I'm sure it'll play out like this:
* News outlet has website, gets visitors.
* Facebook comes along, gets many visitors.
* News outlet posts content on Facebook for exposure.
* News outlet gets visitors via Facebook and makes money on advertisement revenue.
* Facebook starts to things to keep people in their ecosystem.
* News outlet gets no visitors as everybody considers Facebook their 'entrypoint' to the WWW.
* New bill gets lobbied that force tech giants need to pay to post news.
* Tech giants don't post news.
* News outlet still doesn't get visitors.
> So the bill doesn't say that Canadians will no longer have access to news content on Facebook & Instagram. The bill says that tech giants need to pay to post news content on their own website.
Who's the one posting the news in this case? You make it sound like Facebook is taking their content and posting it for them, but the way I'm interpreting it is, those outlets are posting to Facebook of their own volition and with this bill, Facebook would have to pay The Globe and Mail whenever The Globe and Mail posts content to Facebook. Am I reading it wrong?
Still waiting for Facebook Ultron. 100% Facebook unavailability globally. Happiness among the people in the world would rise 300% to 800% overnight from stopping comparing our own lives to the lives of everyone else constantly:DD
Was just thinking that nothing of value was lost, but really, first they come for that, and by the time they take the rest away it's too late. The objective is to erase and fray social ties that form anything resembling a durable narrative or identity. This is a process, and it's accelerating.
I only follow reputable media in Facebook. My feed consists of news articles from as much non-paywalled newspaper as I can get. I'm from Mexico so most of the media here is not behind a paywall.
I unfollowed all my facebook friends because I don't want to see their shit.
Yeah Facebook can still learn things about me and manipulate me. But I find it easier and faster to use Facebook as an accumulation of my favorite media than going to each website.
I also use Twitter for the same thing plus following programming personalities (famous and non-famous) and some friends.
I'm curious how many people consciously have something they "rely" on for news. Personally, I find news generally finds its way to me, and I don't deliberately seek it out (usually). Instead I have these bad habits I've developed, like where I open up HN without even thinking when my brain is seeking stimulation or looking for a distraction from something hard.
I do for extremely local news because there's no where better than it these days. All the local newspapers were bought and shut down, so first hand accounts and discussion is all that's left.
I do, because news sites are no longer usable with their paywalls, GDPR popups, newsletter popups, and even more popups complaining that you disabled cookies when it's literally my default setting for all sites.
It wasn't clear from the article if the blocking is based on the account, or the geo-located endpoint (or both?). Will Canadians in the US see news in their feed? Will a traveler from Trinidad and Tobago see news while in Canada?
Law and enforcement is based on geography. For example, Canadians in China don't have access to sites that Chinese citizens don't, just because they're Canadian.
...In other news, quality of life has increased among Canadians while acts of hatred fueled by polarizing media-driven echo chambers have decreased. Facebook swears these two events are unrelated. Film at 11.
Readit News
Google and other social media platforms seem like the primary source of traffic for these legacy media companies. I mean a lot of news organizations upload links to their content themselves because that's how people find what to read. I reckon very few people go directly to the news websites to find articles and that's certainly not going to change because of this law in my opinion. The concept of a service provider having to pay to host links is absurd and goes against the nature of how the internet works. It's an attack on the very nature of the internet framed in a manner of "Protecting Canadian's" when in reality, the people who's pockets its meant to line ironically are the ones who are going to be hurt the most by it.
What a disaster.
I can't wait to watch how this backfires when the legacy media companies start complaining about how they are getting next to no traffic once this passes. That's not even to mention the smaller publishers who now aren't able to promote their own content on these platforms because of this bill.
My understanding is that news companies make their money primarily on ads. If it's subs, then why don't these news companies go entirely behind a paywall and demand google and facebook remove all links to their content. Instead, they are using government to essentially steal money from tech companies for those links.
Their actions doesn't align with your assertions.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-23/facebook-reverses-new...
Forcing either party to give up their agency seems wrong (like France saying Facebook has to pay and can't just leave the news content sharing market if the price is too high).
Is this a typo? Did the French government really say Facebook CAN'T leave the 'news content sharing market'?
The law, as written, will only ever apply to Facebook, and will only ever result in money going to Murdoch. It's really impressive.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/26/abc-does-deals...
Although in that article they are supposedly going to "make new and significant investments in regional services", today it seems they are back to cutting.
> "If the government can't stand up for Canadians against tech giants, who will?" said Rodriguez.
How is this "stand[ing] up for Canadians"? More like standing up for news corps. The framing of the response from Meta by Trudeau as "bullying tactics" is a bit irritating. I'd expect Meta's experiments with blocking news to be checking whether the new costs mean it's still worth for them to post news or now. I still don't really understand what the purpose of this law is.
it's standing up for Canadian news companies. this is one way
this is another more dubious way this is good for people: I think this may even improve facebook as a website: no more "news" which are just some sort "advertisement" or propaganda that looks like "news".
maybe another way to understand this move is to consider it as a way to force facebook to pay to publish a certain sort of what is essentially "government advertisement". this means it's a tax from Canada to Meta's Facebook
However, the giants then give a giant middle finger to the news outlets.
Full disclosure: I hate <please accept our cookies> News outlets <please provide your email address for our newsletter> and the way they <you have reached 5/5 articles this month, click here to get a subscription>.
*WirelessGigabit navigates to archive.is/link_to_article
... try to do everything to NOT focus on the article they just wrote...
But, looking at the history, I'm sure it'll play out like this:
Who's the one posting the news in this case? You make it sound like Facebook is taking their content and posting it for them, but the way I'm interpreting it is, those outlets are posting to Facebook of their own volition and with this bill, Facebook would have to pay The Globe and Mail whenever The Globe and Mail posts content to Facebook. Am I reading it wrong?
I only follow reputable media in Facebook. My feed consists of news articles from as much non-paywalled newspaper as I can get. I'm from Mexico so most of the media here is not behind a paywall.
I unfollowed all my facebook friends because I don't want to see their shit.
Yeah Facebook can still learn things about me and manipulate me. But I find it easier and faster to use Facebook as an accumulation of my favorite media than going to each website.
I also use Twitter for the same thing plus following programming personalities (famous and non-famous) and some friends.
All this means is that they will no longer see links to external news articles when they are reading facebook. So effectively they won't see any news.