johnnyYen (u/johnnyYen)

johnnyYen commented on Before-and-after images show how Greenland's glaciers have rapidly retreated cnn.com/2023/11/12/climat... · Posted by u/vinnyglennon

johnnyYen · 2 years ago

and yet Greenland is gaining ice

https://electroverse.info/how-the-greenland-ice-sheet-really...

https://electroverse.info/increases-in-polar-bear-population...

johnnyYen commented on Facebook to restore news in Australia after last-minute deal with government smh.com.au/politics/feder... · Posted by u/wp381640

1vuio0pswjnm7 · 5 years ago

"Content is king."

Google nor Facebook produce any.

It's one thing for consumers to not want to pay for content. We are used to having news for "free". But it's another thing for middlemen to expect to get news for free that they can use to turn a massive profit, undercutting the source's own business.

Bravo to Australia for standing up to the middlemen.

It worked.

johnnyYen · 5 years ago

I think you are mis-understanding what the news organisations source of business is. It's NOT the consumers of news, and never was. It's the advertising companies who place ads on the news organisations properties - and now the news organisations customers (i.e. the ad companies) have found it more beneficial to advertise with Google and FB.

johnnyYen commented on Facebook to restore news pages in Australia bbc.com/news/world-austra... · Posted by u/frob

berndi · 5 years ago

So we're now at a point where Big Tech can overtly strong-arm a nation into changing legislation proposed by their democratically elected government.

Facebook didn't bat an eye before blocking the pages of food banks and emergency service providers in the middle of a pandemic for an entire county, all in service of avoiding a drop in their advertising revenue [1]. That should tell you a lot.

You might not like the proposed laws but Facebook's reckless conduct is indefensible.

If you compare this to Facebook's history in Myanmar, you will find that they have no issue with subsidising the spread of their platform while it is being used to incite a literal genocide [2]. But they draw the line and take swift action when their profits are endangered.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-australia-news-ban-... [2] https://www.wired.com/story/how-facebooks-rise-fueled-chaos-...

johnnyYen · 5 years ago

"Facebook didn't bat an eye before blocking the pages of food banks and emergency service providers..."

No, FB obeyed the law. The legislation of what constitutes a "news organisation" is opaque. The legislation said pay for links or don't show them. FB complied with the law and elected not to show them. I cannot see the problem here - FB obeyed the law.

johnnyYen commented on An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia about.fb.com/news/2020/08... · Posted by u/lunchbreak

boloust · 6 years ago

The legislation explicitly prevents platforms from deindexing/downranking news sites that participate in the code in favour of other sites that do not.

Which places Google in a more difficult position, because if a user searches for some news, Google is essentially forced to return results from a participating news organisation, or not show any relevant news results at all.

While Facebook can just prevent users from sharing any news links, Google can't exactly stop users from searching for news.

johnnyYen · 6 years ago

I'd think Google could easily get around this by limiting the frequency with which their GoogleBot visits News Corp web sites to, say, once a month. Effectively makes being indexed worthless for News Corp.

johnnyYen commented on An Update About Changes to Facebook’s Services in Australia about.fb.com/news/2020/08... · Posted by u/lunchbreak

jakecopp · 6 years ago

I encourage everyone to have a read of the actual draft legislation along with hearing Facebook's reaction to new regulations being imposed on them.

The actual legislation sounds well thought out to me: https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-m...

The FAQs: https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/DPB%20-%20Draft%20news%...

See also the ACCC response to Google's open letter, which contained misinformation: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/response-to-google-ope...

johnnyYen · 6 years ago

The ACCC response if disingenuous. It fails to mention the requirement that Google and FB must give news entities 28 days of any changes to their ranking algorithm. I mean WTF. It's the most brain dead piece of legislation you could imagine.

johnnyYen commented on Google: Open Letter to Australians about.google/intl/ALL_au/... · Posted by u/skissane

stirlo · 6 years ago

I didn't mention the government funded ABC but rather the Australian Associated Press (AAP) which is a collection of local journalists funded collectively by the large media companies on both the left and right wing.

johnnyYen · 6 years ago

I was referring to your reference [1].

The AU government wants to give private media a leg up, but won't allow the ABC (or SBS) to receive any moneys from Google/FB, and at the same time regularly cuts funds to both the government funded media entities.

johnnyYen commented on Google: Open Letter to Australians about.google/intl/ALL_au/... · Posted by u/skissane

stirlo · 6 years ago

^ This.

I'm hearing heaps of people crying "Murdock" and "Newscorp" but how about local jobs and ownership vs a global conglomerate that doesn't give 2 f#%ks about our tiny 25 million population and takes $4.8 billion offshore while paying only $100 million tax[1].

The Australian Associate Press recently went bankrupt and needed a bailout from philanthropists[2]. As much as you dislike one particular section of old media it's essential that local media exists in a functional democracy. Google taking $4.8 billion of revenue out of the country strips these organisations of their funding without providing a replacement.

[1]https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-18/google-pays-more-tax-... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Associated_Press

johnnyYen · 6 years ago

Ironic you should reference the ABC when the legislation specifically excludes the ABC from any benefit other "registered news organisations" may enjoy.

johnnyYen commented on Australia to make Facebook, Google pay for news reuters.com/article/us-au... · Posted by u/nreece

johnnyYen · 6 years ago

Seems like massive legislative over-reach.

1.100 Discrimination in this context will be considered to occur if the news content of a registered news business is disadvantaged incomparison to other news content in terms of the crawling, indexing,ranking, display, presentation or other process undertaken by the digital platform on any service provided by the digital platform, on the basis ofthe registered news business’ participation in the code.

IANAL, but my simple reading of this seems to imply it will be illegal for Google to NOT crawl and index News Corps content.