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Facebook faces a global backlash over its bid to 'bully' Australia

28 points by sidcool 6y ago

georgebarnett 6y ago
I’m reasonably convinced that Facebook would like to remove all news from their platform. I have no evidence to back this, however given that it causes them a huge amount of pain and (IMHO) newsfeeds are substantially better when there is no/heavily reduced political fighting between strangers, I can see only upside to this if it happens.
- creata 6y ago
  > I’m reasonably convinced that Facebook would like to remove all news from their platform. I don't think so. Politics and "political fighting" seem amazing for engagement.
  - georgebarnett 6y ago
    I agree, however on FBs hierarchy of needs, engagement is less important than regulation. If they have to decide between regulation that stifles their business or slightly reduced engagement, they’ll pick the latter.
anm89 6y ago
Honestly, why does zuck even stay as ceo? Is fighting governments and playing a supervillian really that rewarding for him? I'm really not a zuck apologist. I dislike fb as much as the next person. But this piece just doesn't make sense to me.
- jononor 6y ago
  Zuck is not just CEO, but also chairman of the board, and personally controls nearly 60 percent of shares (and thus the votes). So no-one can fire him, but himself.
  - anm89 6y ago
    I'm not asking why they don't fire him, I'm asking why he sticks around to deal with it.
randomNumber7 6y ago
I'm really not a fan of facebook and don't even have it, but... If they are forced to pay for the links, they should be allowed to ban them. Otherwise it's just a tax for one single company to sponsor newspapers.
- tomhoward 6y ago
  I'm not a Facebook hater, I think the new laws are stupid, and I wholly agree with your statement "If they are forced to pay for the links, they should be allowed to ban them". But that's not what the backlash is about. Rather, it's about Facebook's banning of content that they would not have had to pay for, apparently just as a flex to show how powerful they are. I wrote more about this here a day ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26192903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26192903 Facebook seems to have backpedalled somewhat since then, so they've effectively conceded they got it wrong initially, but they've still made a big PR blunder, even if their claims are technically true.
  - curryst 6y ago
    They only don't have to pay for it because the Treasurer doesn't currently require them to. Based on my reading of the law, those are all things that Facebook could be forced to pay for. From the code: > core news contentmeans content that > (a)is created by a journalist; and (b) that records, > investigates or explains issues that are of public > significance for Australians; or are relevant in engaging > Australians in public debate and in informing democratic > decision-making; or relate to community and local events. The code doesn't define what constitutes a "journalist" (unless Australia has some kind of pre-existing qualification system for journalists), but I think one could certainly argue that publishing the information in (b) automatically makes you a journalist. Facebook blocked everything the law said they could be charged for, not everything they would currently be charged for. It's a bold move, and I think they failed at communicating that this was meant to demonstrate how broad the law is. Or they were just boasting about how powerful they were, but I tend to think corporations are a little more emotionless than that.
    - 6y ago
hienyimba 6y ago
It’s interesting how CNN falls in line with the “Australia News Law” is good and “Facebook not paying” is bad. Talk about incentives. CNN (and by extension Western Media) needs the Australian News Law to work so they can extract their own share of the pie back home. Maybe, somewhere in their reporting, they should mention that turning up the heat on Facebook will benefit them too.
- zpeti 6y ago
  That fact that everyone around me except for readers of HN think Facebook is evil for doing this, just shows how public opinion is still 100% formed by mainstream media (who have an incentive to portray this as some journalist saving legislation, not a direct payment from Google and FB to News corp).
  - georgebarnett 6y ago
    As an anecdote, those around me (here in Australia) are huge fans of Facebook without news because its the least polluted it's been in years.
  - brmgb 6y ago
    Have you considered that maybe everyone is not stupid and you are the one being wrong? Maybe people realize that the relationship between relatively small and disparate local media companies and the giant foreign tech companies aggregating them and making money from their content doesn't allow negotiation on an equal footing and that preserving healthy journalism justify a state intervention. France did it well. Australia is trying. Apparently Facebook is more scared of France than Australia.
    - sidr 6y ago
      > relationship between relatively small and disparate local media companies and the giant foreign tech companies Are you referring to Nine Entertainment Co. and News Corp. as "relatively small and disparate local media companies"??
- 6y ago
ID1452319 6y ago
There is already a technical solution to prevent web pages from being indexed by Google, the noindex tag. Why not introduce a nosocial tag, then newspapers who don't want their stories shared on social media can simply exclude themselves? Oh, it isn't about sharing content you say? It's about shaking down Facebook and Google? Hmm.

28 points by sidcool 6y ago

I’m reasonably convinced that Facebook would like to remove all news from their platform. I have no evidence to back this, however given that it causes them a huge amount of pain and (IMHO) newsfeeds are substantially better when there is no/heavily reduced political fighting between strangers, I can see only upside to this if it happens.

creata 6y ago
> I’m reasonably convinced that Facebook would like to remove all news from their platform. I don't think so. Politics and "political fighting" seem amazing for engagement.
- georgebarnett 6y ago
  I agree, however on FBs hierarchy of needs, engagement is less important than regulation. If they have to decide between regulation that stifles their business or slightly reduced engagement, they’ll pick the latter.

anm89 6y ago

Honestly, why does zuck even stay as ceo? Is fighting governments and playing a supervillian really that rewarding for him? I'm really not a zuck apologist. I dislike fb as much as the next person. But this piece just doesn't make sense to me.

jononor 6y ago
Zuck is not just CEO, but also chairman of the board, and personally controls nearly 60 percent of shares (and thus the votes). So no-one can fire him, but himself.
- anm89 6y ago
  I'm not asking why they don't fire him, I'm asking why he sticks around to deal with it.

randomNumber7 6y ago

I'm really not a fan of facebook and don't even have it, but... If they are forced to pay for the links, they should be allowed to ban them. Otherwise it's just a tax for one single company to sponsor newspapers.

tomhoward 6y ago
I'm not a Facebook hater, I think the new laws are stupid, and I wholly agree with your statement "If they are forced to pay for the links, they should be allowed to ban them". But that's not what the backlash is about. Rather, it's about Facebook's banning of content that they would not have had to pay for, apparently just as a flex to show how powerful they are. I wrote more about this here a day ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26192903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26192903 Facebook seems to have backpedalled somewhat since then, so they've effectively conceded they got it wrong initially, but they've still made a big PR blunder, even if their claims are technically true.
- curryst 6y ago
  They only don't have to pay for it because the Treasurer doesn't currently require them to. Based on my reading of the law, those are all things that Facebook could be forced to pay for. From the code: > core news contentmeans content that > (a)is created by a journalist; and (b) that records, > investigates or explains issues that are of public > significance for Australians; or are relevant in engaging > Australians in public debate and in informing democratic > decision-making; or relate to community and local events. The code doesn't define what constitutes a "journalist" (unless Australia has some kind of pre-existing qualification system for journalists), but I think one could certainly argue that publishing the information in (b) automatically makes you a journalist. Facebook blocked everything the law said they could be charged for, not everything they would currently be charged for. It's a bold move, and I think they failed at communicating that this was meant to demonstrate how broad the law is. Or they were just boasting about how powerful they were, but I tend to think corporations are a little more emotionless than that.
  - 6y ago

hienyimba 6y ago

It’s interesting how CNN falls in line with the “Australia News Law” is good and “Facebook not paying” is bad. Talk about incentives. CNN (and by extension Western Media) needs the Australian News Law to work so they can extract their own share of the pie back home. Maybe, somewhere in their reporting, they should mention that turning up the heat on Facebook will benefit them too.

zpeti 6y ago
That fact that everyone around me except for readers of HN think Facebook is evil for doing this, just shows how public opinion is still 100% formed by mainstream media (who have an incentive to portray this as some journalist saving legislation, not a direct payment from Google and FB to News corp).
- georgebarnett 6y ago
  As an anecdote, those around me (here in Australia) are huge fans of Facebook without news because its the least polluted it's been in years.
- brmgb 6y ago
  Have you considered that maybe everyone is not stupid and you are the one being wrong? Maybe people realize that the relationship between relatively small and disparate local media companies and the giant foreign tech companies aggregating them and making money from their content doesn't allow negotiation on an equal footing and that preserving healthy journalism justify a state intervention. France did it well. Australia is trying. Apparently Facebook is more scared of France than Australia.
  - sidr 6y ago
    > relationship between relatively small and disparate local media companies and the giant foreign tech companies Are you referring to Nine Entertainment Co. and News Corp. as "relatively small and disparate local media companies"??
6y ago

ID1452319 6y ago

There is already a technical solution to prevent web pages from being indexed by Google, the noindex tag. Why not introduce a nosocial tag, then newspapers who don't want their stories shared on social media can simply exclude themselves? Oh, it isn't about sharing content you say? It's about shaking down Facebook and Google? Hmm.