5 ms·

Was the news industry broken by Facebook and Google, or was it broken by the lack of regulation? In my country, actual publishers are accountable for what they

by moksly 6y ago

Was the news industry broken by Facebook and Google, or was it broken by the lack of regulation? In my country, actual publishers are accountable for what they report, and as such, they tend to be better sources than what you'll find on platforms that aren't regulated. This is why you're not going to find anti-vax pseudo science in a Danish news paper, but you may find it among instagram influencers or in Facebook groups. Which is the real issue. As long as we don't hold people with a public voice accountable for what they say, or regulate the platforms which allow those voices to reach billions, then we're going to be in trouble. Making Google or Facebook share some of what they earn with the news industry isn't going to change that. And why wouldn't we hold instagram influencers to the same editorial standards that we did national news papers, when those influencers have more reach? Free speech simply doesn't work without responsibility, and neither does democracy. It's completely insane that we now live in a world where we have to take science deniers seriously, and it's frankly going to ruin us. Because people aren't only spreading nonsense on social media to get rich, or because they like the attention, there are anti-democratic governments who are using our own unregulated platforms against us, in coordinated attempts to destroy western civilization. So if you want to save the news industry, don't just make Google, Facebook and every other social media platform that hides behind their own users, pay up, make them responsible for the content that they allow onto their platforms exactly like we made the news industry responsible for what they print.

nicoburns 6y ago
> Was the news industry broken by Facebook and Google, or was it broken by the lack of regulation? I think there's a good case that it was broken by Facebook and Google. Specifically them taking away all the ad revenue that used to go to newspapers. That's what led to traditional media outlets going out of business and/or turning to clickbait to make money.
- moksly 6y ago
  I certainly think there is something to be said about that. Ad revenue tends to follow people though, and people flocked to the the open platforms, in part because Google, Facebook and so on, build algorithms to game the psychology of us as consumers, in ways that are illegal for traditional news papers to do. I'm not sure how we're still allowing these giant tech-companies to more or less regulate themselves in the EU. I mean, which public mandate do they have, to remove the elected president of one of the most powerful nations on earth? I'm not trying to turn this political or pro or anti Trump or even pro or anti ban, by the way. But these companies removed one of the most powerful political figures in the world from the reach of millions provided by their platforms, without asking any form of democratic institution for permission to do so. That just screams for regulation in my eyes.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    > in part because Google, Facebook and so on, build algorithms to game the psychology of us as consumers This might true for Facebook. But Google isn't even a media platform, it's a search engine. It's just that search adverts happen to work better than newspaper adverts because their more targeted to people they're relevant too.
  - moksly 6y ago
    > This might true for Facebook. But Google isn't even a media platform, it's a search engine. It's just that search adverts happen to work better than newspaper adverts because their more targeted to people they're relevant too. If a Danish news paper profiled their advertising specifically for me because they happened to know how much money I spend on Warhammer figures, they would be breaking our laws. Even with the GDPR, Google can do the same thing legally. And google goes beyond just advertising doesn't it? If I google air humidity in my town, because I want to spray prime Warhammer figures, google selects which site it shows me the information from in the google widget thing. Maybe it's not as bad as Facebook, but what happens if you search for the covid-19 vaccine and you're an anti-vaxxer? What data ends up in googles info-boxes then?
- p_l 6y ago
  But was it taking away the ad revenue, or was it the meteoric rise of valuation and ad-dependency in 1990s without investment into alternative income streams, only for widespread internet access to nuke the business model? News industry sites are chock full of ads of all kinds, when most people agree they don't want to see them, and they also lead the way in tracking and abusing user data. Maybe the wrong step happened earlier.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    What alternate income streams would you suggest?
briga 6y ago
If we need regulation, the question then becomes: who does the regulating? Tech firms in Silicon Valley? Big government in Washington? Big business on Wall Street? Putting that editorial power in any one group's hands is going to lead to a different sort of trouble aside from the trouble that arises from misinformation and extremism. I'm not sure what the right balance here is and it really does seem to be one of the defining problems of our time.
- moksly 6y ago
  In Denmark, and in many other European countries, we have special media laws that are guidelines on what the responsibilities of being an editorial body means. We also have an independant institution to make sure these are upheld. In Denmark it's called Pressenævnet, and it's members are appointed by our Supreme Court, a "guild" of the editors of the primary medias in our country, a political body for PBS services and journalist unions. Works perfectly fine, and as far as the EU goes, I think that's the direction we need to take. I have no idea how you would do it in the US, but I don't think that's really for us to worry about either.
  - briga 6y ago
    That seems like a fine solution for a relatively small and unified country of ~6 million, but I don't necessarily think it scales to a country the size of the US, let alone the global news economy. Ideologies are so fragmented these days that I could imagine many different regulatory guilds pushing their own agenda. There is no longer a monopoly on "truth", if there ever was one.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - moksly 6y ago
      Germany and France have rather similar regulatory setups to ours, so it does work in larger and more fragmented countries. But as I said, I have no idea how it would work for USA. It's honestly kind of hard for me to imagine how any US regulatory bodies work, when they replace the leadership every four years, and often without a broad cross-party agreement.
bsenftner 6y ago
Exactly this, as well as anyone pushing revenue sharing or some other nonsense is trying to have your cake and eat it too. Everything in human reality is about boundaries and responsibilities within those boundaries. As manipulators successfully fool the public into thinking otherwise, we get a completely insane information attack, filling 360 degrees of our environment. It is going to require generations to undo the damage the last 4 years have done to the United States both domestically and internationally.

by moksly 6y ago

nicoburns 6y ago

> Was the news industry broken by Facebook and Google, or was it broken by the lack of regulation? I think there's a good case that it was broken by Facebook and Google. Specifically them taking away all the ad revenue that used to go to newspapers. That's what led to traditional media outlets going out of business and/or turning to clickbait to make money.

moksly 6y ago
I certainly think there is something to be said about that. Ad revenue tends to follow people though, and people flocked to the the open platforms, in part because Google, Facebook and so on, build algorithms to game the psychology of us as consumers, in ways that are illegal for traditional news papers to do. I'm not sure how we're still allowing these giant tech-companies to more or less regulate themselves in the EU. I mean, which public mandate do they have, to remove the elected president of one of the most powerful nations on earth? I'm not trying to turn this political or pro or anti Trump or even pro or anti ban, by the way. But these companies removed one of the most powerful political figures in the world from the reach of millions provided by their platforms, without asking any form of democratic institution for permission to do so. That just screams for regulation in my eyes.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  > in part because Google, Facebook and so on, build algorithms to game the psychology of us as consumers This might true for Facebook. But Google isn't even a media platform, it's a search engine. It's just that search adverts happen to work better than newspaper adverts because their more targeted to people they're relevant too.
- moksly 6y ago
  > This might true for Facebook. But Google isn't even a media platform, it's a search engine. It's just that search adverts happen to work better than newspaper adverts because their more targeted to people they're relevant too. If a Danish news paper profiled their advertising specifically for me because they happened to know how much money I spend on Warhammer figures, they would be breaking our laws. Even with the GDPR, Google can do the same thing legally. And google goes beyond just advertising doesn't it? If I google air humidity in my town, because I want to spray prime Warhammer figures, google selects which site it shows me the information from in the google widget thing. Maybe it's not as bad as Facebook, but what happens if you search for the covid-19 vaccine and you're an anti-vaxxer? What data ends up in googles info-boxes then?
p_l 6y ago
But was it taking away the ad revenue, or was it the meteoric rise of valuation and ad-dependency in 1990s without investment into alternative income streams, only for widespread internet access to nuke the business model? News industry sites are chock full of ads of all kinds, when most people agree they don't want to see them, and they also lead the way in tracking and abusing user data. Maybe the wrong step happened earlier.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  What alternate income streams would you suggest?

briga 6y ago

If we need regulation, the question then becomes: who does the regulating? Tech firms in Silicon Valley? Big government in Washington? Big business on Wall Street? Putting that editorial power in any one group's hands is going to lead to a different sort of trouble aside from the trouble that arises from misinformation and extremism. I'm not sure what the right balance here is and it really does seem to be one of the defining problems of our time.

moksly 6y ago
In Denmark, and in many other European countries, we have special media laws that are guidelines on what the responsibilities of being an editorial body means. We also have an independant institution to make sure these are upheld. In Denmark it's called Pressenævnet, and it's members are appointed by our Supreme Court, a "guild" of the editors of the primary medias in our country, a political body for PBS services and journalist unions. Works perfectly fine, and as far as the EU goes, I think that's the direction we need to take. I have no idea how you would do it in the US, but I don't think that's really for us to worry about either.
- briga 6y ago
  That seems like a fine solution for a relatively small and unified country of ~6 million, but I don't necessarily think it scales to a country the size of the US, let alone the global news economy. Ideologies are so fragmented these days that I could imagine many different regulatory guilds pushing their own agenda. There is no longer a monopoly on "truth", if there ever was one.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - moksly 6y ago
    Germany and France have rather similar regulatory setups to ours, so it does work in larger and more fragmented countries. But as I said, I have no idea how it would work for USA. It's honestly kind of hard for me to imagine how any US regulatory bodies work, when they replace the leadership every four years, and often without a broad cross-party agreement.

bsenftner 6y ago

Exactly this, as well as anyone pushing revenue sharing or some other nonsense is trying to have your cake and eat it too. Everything in human reality is about boundaries and responsibilities within those boundaries. As manipulators successfully fool the public into thinking otherwise, we get a completely insane information attack, filling 360 degrees of our environment. It is going to require generations to undo the damage the last 4 years have done to the United States both domestically and internationally.