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Were it not for the parens, your first paragraph could have been talking about any of the players Why is it a false assumption? The users are the product, and

• stephen_g 6y ago
  Tax evasion is a separate matter - I agree we do need to work on that, not just for Google and Facebook but all multinationals (resource companies like Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Woodside etc. leave Google in the dust in that respect). With the assumption - at the moment, these publishers the ability to not be indexed using robots.txt, sitemap.xml etc.. If Google and Facebook were making huge profits directly from Australian news content, they could pretty easily organise to all boycott them. If the assumption behind this law was true, then that would be extremely effective because of the money apparently at stake. Or if the news sources just felt they were being unfairly used, they could just cut them off on principal. But they haven't done either. Why not? Secondly, Facebook couldn't credibly come out with a threat like this. Why would they cut off what News Corp and Nine tell us is apparently a huge revenue stream? But as we know, they're not really making huge profits directly from news, and not even much indirectly, so Facebook can threaten this.
  • judge2020 6y ago
    The only thing Facebook risks by banning all news for Australian users is engagement - that is, if the site doesn't instantly become better without the largely grim narratives put out by News Corp and most all modern news stations.