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I know you're not defending it, but even this steelman doesn't make sense. They don't run an ad alongside the article; They run it alongside the _link_ to the

I know you're not defending it, but even this steelman doesn't make sense. They don't run an ad alongside the article; They run it alongside the _link_ to the article, and the Sydney Morning-Herald runs an ad alongside the article. Facebook is providing aggregation and sharing of the link, and advertising alongside that aggregation and sharing. Does the Aus gov't think that telecoms or smartphone manufacturers should be paying extortion money to media companies too?

cormacrelf 7y ago
I can't back any of this up, but I think this is the logic. Facebook is essentially a link distribution platform. It only continues to get visitors because media companies keep providing, like spooky magic, new links to be shared on there every day. Many of their visitors would drop away immediately without news. The news is the basis for a ton of engagement once the visitors arrive (39.2K likes, etc.). If that were all true you'd think it would be enough to get Facebook to pay to keep news companies afloat, but it isn't: they don't care which news organisations survive, only that there are still new links every day. Importantly, because nobody reads articles, only headlines, news orgs get nothing without the click. So "link aggregation" without ad revenue or subscription revenue is worth zero in the usual case. Fb doesn't have a problem letting good journalism die out as long as there are enough Breitbarts going around producing engagement on Fb. It takes a lot less $ per link to produce fake news than real news with facts in it, and those headlines are pretty damn engaging, so those places will die out last or more likely never die out because the margins are still fine and their competitors have died out. I think that means they have to pay fake news places as well, otherwise promoting quality news (Fb can control how much attention a link gets) costs more tax and is disincentivised.
dodobirdlord 7y ago
Facebook will display a link preview in the news feed, which will generally select some thumbnail and show the article headline and some text snippet, maybe the first sentence or two. The argument goes that by doing this, Facebook is monetizing the content of the link owner, and if people only read the headlines and text snippets and never click the link (frequently true), Facebook ends up with all of the ad revenue. At least, this is the argument used by Spain against Google News, causing Google to stop linking to Spanish news sites. https://louisem.com/3838/facebook-link-thumbnail-image-sizes https://louisem.com/3838/facebook-link-thumbnail-image-sizes
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  > if people only read the headlines and text snippets and never click the link (frequently true), Facebook ends up with all of the ad revenue. No, you have this backwards; snippets don't leech revenue away from news orgs, they enhance their revenue. There have been cases in the past where Google was ordered to stop displaying snippets of certain sites without paying, and media companies immediately started whining about the sharp traffic declines. Complaints about the copyright of snippets is a fig leaf for protection money of the sort they're demanding once again.

cormacrelf 7y ago

I can't back any of this up, but I think this is the logic. Facebook is essentially a link distribution platform. It only continues to get visitors because media companies keep providing, like spooky magic, new links to be shared on there every day. Many of their visitors would drop away immediately without news. The news is the basis for a ton of engagement once the visitors arrive (39.2K likes, etc.). If that were all true you'd think it would be enough to get Facebook to pay to keep news companies afloat, but it isn't: they don't care which news organisations survive, only that there are still new links every day. Importantly, because nobody reads articles, only headlines, news orgs get nothing without the click. So "link aggregation" without ad revenue or subscription revenue is worth zero in the usual case. Fb doesn't have a problem letting good journalism die out as long as there are enough Breitbarts going around producing engagement on Fb. It takes a lot less $ per link to produce fake news than real news with facts in it, and those headlines are pretty damn engaging, so those places will die out last or more likely never die out because the margins are still fine and their competitors have died out. I think that means they have to pay fake news places as well, otherwise promoting quality news (Fb can control how much attention a link gets) costs more tax and is disincentivised.

dodobirdlord 7y ago

Facebook will display a link preview in the news feed, which will generally select some thumbnail and show the article headline and some text snippet, maybe the first sentence or two. The argument goes that by doing this, Facebook is monetizing the content of the link owner, and if people only read the headlines and text snippets and never click the link (frequently true), Facebook ends up with all of the ad revenue. At least, this is the argument used by Spain against Google News, causing Google to stop linking to Spanish news sites. https://louisem.com/3838/facebook-link-thumbnail-image-sizes https://louisem.com/3838/facebook-link-thumbnail-image-sizes

wutbrodo 7y ago
> if people only read the headlines and text snippets and never click the link (frequently true), Facebook ends up with all of the ad revenue. No, you have this backwards; snippets don't leech revenue away from news orgs, they enhance their revenue. There have been cases in the past where Google was ordered to stop displaying snippets of certain sites without paying, and media companies immediately started whining about the sharp traffic declines. Complaints about the copyright of snippets is a fig leaf for protection money of the sort they're demanding once again.