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> This tells more about the journalists than Facebook. Facebook has always been the same. It's journalists who sold their soul so that they can make money. I'

> This tells more about the journalists than Facebook. Facebook has always been the same. It's journalists who sold their soul so that they can make money. I'm not sure what your whole screed about journaists has to do with the decision at hand. It's just a fact that one of the largest online audiences is on Facebook and that newspapers & magazines have to be present on that platform to get views. They can't really get around posting to Fb, can they? If Fb suddenly cuts a major source of revenue for a whole industry without any discussion, if that is Fb's power, then this is really unhealthy for our market economy and our ideas of democracy

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
The Web is an open platform. Facebook is not some big brother who has power to censor anything. People can type https://nytimes.com https://nytimes.com to go directly go to the new york times if they want. From Facebook's point of view, these media sites are nothing more than parasites that try to write sensational articles to mislead the public and get people to fight online. Users become unhappy because they get into unnecessary arguments with their friends and family about things that ultimately have no right or wrong answer (such as politics), and end up blaming Facebook for facilitating it. Facebook is unhappy because their users are unhappy. It's only these short-sighted media companies that "benefit" off of the traffic (but in the long term not so much). By cutting this party out of the equation, users are happier. Facebook is happier. And I would say it's a good thing even for the media because essentially they are being cut off of access to the race to the bottom that's killing them. One of the reasons why these publications had to write sensationalism articles and disseminate them onto Facebook was because if they didn't, their competition would. Now that they are cut off, they are forced to compete in healthier ways. It's kind of hilarious because it's like these self-important media companies are some kids trying to get their hands on a cookie jar and fighting, and one day their mom (Facebook) takes it all away so nobody gets the cookie jar. The kids cry and bitch about it saying it's not fair. But soon something great happens. kids no longer fight because there's nothing to fight over, but go out to earn their own cookie in their own creative ways. They may even share the ones they earned with one another if they're generous. Anyway this has nothing to do with democracy, they're just doing the thing they've become good at doing--spinning news to fit their interest--like kids crying and complaining about how it's not fair that the free cookie jar is gone.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  They have the ability to control what you see and do — they push content at you that drives their perception of engagement.
- marcus_holmes 9y ago
  >And I would say it's a good thing even for the media because essentially they are being cut off of access to the race to the bottom that's killing them. I would completely agree if it wasn't possible for a media page to pay to have their posts back in the news feed again. Which it is. If FB was genuinely trying to "make users happy" then I'd be more charitable. But they're not. They're trying to monetise more. As a publisher affected by this test, it was a nightmare. All our users are on mobile, and use FB as their search engine. We saw a ~75% drop in engagement for the main site affected by it. Yes, people can type a url into a browser. But they don't. they scroll their newsfeed. Our choices are: take FB head-on trying to get engagement with our users outside FB, or pay FB to regain our old levels of engagement. Not fun.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    Yes, people can type a url into a browser. But they don't. they scroll their newsfeed. They don't ... for your site. You know how often I see Hacker News on Facebook? Never. Yet I visit here regularly. Same for reddit and many other sources of news. You know how often Breitbart links appear in Facebook or Google News? Never. Yet it's the 49th biggest site in the USA according to Alexa. Our choices are: take FB head-on trying to get engagement with our users outside FB, or pay FB to regain our old levels of engagement. Not fun. Isn't that cookie-jar thinking, just like cocktailpeanuts says? You got large amounts of free advertising and referral traffic for a long time. Very few businesses benefit from that sort of thing. Now you're back to having to get loyal users the old fashioned way, or you can pay for that traffic in the manner of traditional advertisers.
    - marcus_holmes 9y ago
      HN, Reddit and FB are all aggregators, not journalists. They are not sources of news, they merely link to it. Producing quality journalism is expensive, the business model doesn't work to pay for the journalists and also pay for our traffic. Having been through this test, our only viable long-term choice here is to gtf off FB. That's going to be extremely painful. Let's hope a few good news sources survive the pain, eh? Otherwise all you've got left on your lovely FB/HN/Reddit feed is the shite that's cheap to produce and optimised for clicks...
eighthnate 9y ago
> If Fb suddenly cuts a major source of revenue for a whole industry without any discussion, if that is Fb's power, then this is really unhealthy for our market economy and our ideas of democracy But that's what journalists are demanding. The NYTimes, Guardian, WaPo, WSJ and all the established news organizations have been pressuring FB, TWTR and google to censor other viewpoints. The selfish hypocrisy of the media is what I just can't stand. The biggest proponent of censorship on the internet and social media are these supposing "free speech" loving journalists. They don't care about free speech or democracy. They just want money.

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago

The Web is an open platform. Facebook is not some big brother who has power to censor anything. People can type https://nytimes.com https://nytimes.com to go directly go to the new york times if they want. From Facebook's point of view, these media sites are nothing more than parasites that try to write sensational articles to mislead the public and get people to fight online. Users become unhappy because they get into unnecessary arguments with their friends and family about things that ultimately have no right or wrong answer (such as politics), and end up blaming Facebook for facilitating it. Facebook is unhappy because their users are unhappy. It's only these short-sighted media companies that "benefit" off of the traffic (but in the long term not so much). By cutting this party out of the equation, users are happier. Facebook is happier. And I would say it's a good thing even for the media because essentially they are being cut off of access to the race to the bottom that's killing them. One of the reasons why these publications had to write sensationalism articles and disseminate them onto Facebook was because if they didn't, their competition would. Now that they are cut off, they are forced to compete in healthier ways. It's kind of hilarious because it's like these self-important media companies are some kids trying to get their hands on a cookie jar and fighting, and one day their mom (Facebook) takes it all away so nobody gets the cookie jar. The kids cry and bitch about it saying it's not fair. But soon something great happens. kids no longer fight because there's nothing to fight over, but go out to earn their own cookie in their own creative ways. They may even share the ones they earned with one another if they're generous. Anyway this has nothing to do with democracy, they're just doing the thing they've become good at doing--spinning news to fit their interest--like kids crying and complaining about how it's not fair that the free cookie jar is gone.

Spooky23 9y ago
They have the ability to control what you see and do — they push content at you that drives their perception of engagement.
marcus_holmes 9y ago
>And I would say it's a good thing even for the media because essentially they are being cut off of access to the race to the bottom that's killing them. I would completely agree if it wasn't possible for a media page to pay to have their posts back in the news feed again. Which it is. If FB was genuinely trying to "make users happy" then I'd be more charitable. But they're not. They're trying to monetise more. As a publisher affected by this test, it was a nightmare. All our users are on mobile, and use FB as their search engine. We saw a ~75% drop in engagement for the main site affected by it. Yes, people can type a url into a browser. But they don't. they scroll their newsfeed. Our choices are: take FB head-on trying to get engagement with our users outside FB, or pay FB to regain our old levels of engagement. Not fun.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Yes, people can type a url into a browser. But they don't. they scroll their newsfeed. They don't ... for your site. You know how often I see Hacker News on Facebook? Never. Yet I visit here regularly. Same for reddit and many other sources of news. You know how often Breitbart links appear in Facebook or Google News? Never. Yet it's the 49th biggest site in the USA according to Alexa. Our choices are: take FB head-on trying to get engagement with our users outside FB, or pay FB to regain our old levels of engagement. Not fun. Isn't that cookie-jar thinking, just like cocktailpeanuts says? You got large amounts of free advertising and referral traffic for a long time. Very few businesses benefit from that sort of thing. Now you're back to having to get loyal users the old fashioned way, or you can pay for that traffic in the manner of traditional advertisers.
  - marcus_holmes 9y ago
    HN, Reddit and FB are all aggregators, not journalists. They are not sources of news, they merely link to it. Producing quality journalism is expensive, the business model doesn't work to pay for the journalists and also pay for our traffic. Having been through this test, our only viable long-term choice here is to gtf off FB. That's going to be extremely painful. Let's hope a few good news sources survive the pain, eh? Otherwise all you've got left on your lovely FB/HN/Reddit feed is the shite that's cheap to produce and optimised for clicks...

eighthnate 9y ago

> If Fb suddenly cuts a major source of revenue for a whole industry without any discussion, if that is Fb's power, then this is really unhealthy for our market economy and our ideas of democracy But that's what journalists are demanding. The NYTimes, Guardian, WaPo, WSJ and all the established news organizations have been pressuring FB, TWTR and google to censor other viewpoints. The selfish hypocrisy of the media is what I just can't stand. The biggest proponent of censorship on the internet and social media are these supposing "free speech" loving journalists. They don't care about free speech or democracy. They just want money.