13 ms·

Facebook gives money to America’s biggest news organizations

401 points by panic 5y ago

nillium 5y ago
Wrote this a little while back. Most news orgs -- especially local -- are being set up to fail in this environment. https://blog.nillium.com/news-was-never-meant-for-social-platforms/ https://blog.nillium.com/news-was-never-meant-for-social-pla...
- ignoramous 5y ago
  Whilst BigTech is busy eating News institutions at the top, PE firms are busy devouring the bottom. https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/GvtNyOzGogc https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/GvtNyOzGogc
- clairity 5y ago
  a little marketing tip: summarize both the rationale and the conclusion. it’s tempting to think just one or the other is enough to entice the potential visitor, but no, it’s much easier to dismiss a link if it comes off as fantastic, implausible, or unsupported, which is more likely when you leave out one or the other. it’s more enticing to get an obvious full bite rather than an elusive nibble.
SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
I’d really like to see a transcript of this interview with Thompson. My media literacy alarm is going off - why does the article splice together “far, far more” and “very much so” rather than quoting exactly what he said in context?
redisman 5y ago
Have you listened to any of their podcasts in the last 6 months? Their main ad is always some propaganda piece from Facebook
- tediousdemise 5y ago
  Not too long ago, Facebook took out a full page ad against Apple to gaslight consumers that anti-tracking was harming small business. This company is like a perforated colon that keeps leaking feces into the collective body of society. Pretty soon we'll go into septic shock.
  - ErikVandeWater 5y ago
    Anti-tracking is harmful to all businesses who advertise, is it not?
    - randomsearch 5y ago
      not necessarily, no
    - Spivak 5y ago
      It absolutely is. I detest Facebook's level of tracking and invasion of people's privacy but I'll be damned if it doesn't enable businesses of any size to market with the same power previously reserved for supermassive brands for pennies. I feel like there's basically no allowable nuance in this discussion because holding any opinion than "tracking is 100% bad with literally no upsides for anyone other than ad networks any business that claims to get any value whatsoever is being misled" is taken as a defense of the current state of internet advertising and is the digital equivalent of burying your head in the sand while everyone else continues like you don't exist. If you can't understand and explain why the fence was put there then you'll get nowhere trying to argue that it should be torn down.
      - bogwog 5y ago
        > but I'll be damned if it doesn't enable businesses of any size to market with the same power previously reserved for supermassive brands for pennies You forgot to add this part: > At the expense of the consumer, and usually without their consent or knowledge. Facebook is the particular bad guy here, because we usually need to rally around one target to get anything done (and they are by far the worst offender). But the goal is not to take down Facebook, it's to limit or eliminate tracking and other practices that violate and exploit the privacy of people. Of course small businesses can benefit from doing what Facebook does, just like a homeless person can benefit by robbing a bank. That doesn't mean it's right. Stronger privacy laws might kill small businesses that engage in that type of behavior, but it's not going to kill the economy. New business will be born, and the free market will fix itself.
KMnO4 5y ago
Another great example of Betteridge’s Law of Headlines. If the headline is a question, the answer is no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  Funnily enough that law is empirically false, and most of the time (although it's near a coinflip) the answer is yes
  - zepto 5y ago
    Do you have a link for the study?
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      I read the Wikipedia article linked above. They go over the studies there.
    - notlukesky 5y ago
      To Tome’s law?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - twobitshifter 5y ago
    Interesting, I found this article which backs you up http://calmerthanyouare.org/2015/03/19/betteridges-law.html http://calmerthanyouare.org/2015/03/19/betteridges-law.html
- tome 5y ago
  tome's law strikes again! "In any discussion about an article whose title is a question, Betteridge's law is mentioned with probability 1." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24545238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24545238
echelon 5y ago
I don't see how news is sustainable at current employment levels. Most papers cover the same stories from their own angle, but we don't need 1,000 duplicated takes. Social media bubbles headlines and links up from a potluck of sources, so there's no central paper to subscribe to and support. The end result is ad blocking everything, ignoring paywalls, and subscribing or paying no one. If I went to a paper's website instead of social media (HN, some curated reddits), I'd be inclined to subscribe, but none of them have great audience participation and discussion. If there was a Spotify for news journals, I'd be happy to subscribe, but that doesn't solve the issue of clickbait garbage winning over real journalism and soaking up all the money. Nor does it supply enough revenue to feed all the journalists. The solution, sadly, seems to be mass culling and centralization. The world is connected and nobody needs local newspapers anymore. Edit: not sure why I'm at -3 for making an observation. I'm not defending Facebook. The news industry doesn't appear to be sustainable in the modern age.
- twobitshifter 5y ago
  Isn’t Apple News+ the Spotify of newspapers? If you don’t want the social aspect of news, you can get the AP stories through the AP News app or subscribe to rss feeds to major papers. The AP keeps papers from covering the same story from their own angle, you’ll usually see the same AP stories printed in papers across the country. I agree it’s hard to filter the news on your own and quality journalism does seem to be going behind paywalls now. This isn’t great for an educated society.
  - echelon 5y ago
    > Isn’t Apple News+ the Spotify of newspapers? I'm not on an Apple platform and don't even know what this is. I suppose it works for Apple subscribers?
    - chrjxnandns 5y ago
      Very helpful contribution to the conversation...
    - 5y ago
1cvmask 5y ago
No surprise here. Two peas in a pod. The assault on independant journalists (e.g Substack), independant voices (e.g. Clubhouse) and others continues unabated by the likes of NY Times elitists like Taylor Lorenz. Corporate media like NY Times even covered the original 2004 Harvey Weinstein expose and regularly lies on so many internatonal issues as well. https://www.thewrap.com/harvey-weinstein-new-york-times-bill-keller-editor-fabrizio-lombardo-2004-expose/ https://www.thewrap.com/harvey-weinstein-new-york-times-bill... Look at coverage of the caliphate series, Iraq war, Bolivian coup, Honduras, Guatemala and so many more.... The corporate media just wants to muzzle the truth by falsehoods by omission and so much more
- kgog 5y ago
  Looks like you drank the SV Kool Aid.
  - stupendousyappi 5y ago
    I mentally tune out anyone who uses the word "elitist". To me, it's one of the clearest signs that they're arguing using prejudices rather than evidence.
    - notlukesky 5y ago
      Taylor Lorenz attended a 90 thousand a year high school. Is that not elitist? https://twitter.com/comfortablysmug/status/1369653913121677315?lang=en https://twitter.com/comfortablysmug/status/13696539131216773...
      - afavour 5y ago
        Why not discuss the actual coverage rather than attack the journalist?
        1cvmask 5y ago
        From the article below: The profound pathologies driving all of this were on full display on Saturday night as the result of a reckless and self-humiliating smear campaign by one of The New York Times’ star tech reporters, Taylor Lorenz. She falsely and very publicly accused Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen of having used the “slur” word “retarded” during a discussion about the Reddit/GameStop uprising. Lorenz lied. Andreessen never used that word. And rather than apologize and retract it, she justified her mistake by claiming it was a “male voice” that sounded like his, then locked her Twitter account as though she — rather than the person she falsely maligned — was the victim. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale-and-censorship https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale...
rriepe 5y ago
Every time you sell your credibility, you have to reduce the price.
resoluteteeth 5y ago
Accurate title: "Facebook is paying the New York Times for use of articles."
- notlukesky 5y ago
  How about “Facebook is paying off the New York Times for protection articles”
  - eli 5y ago
    Because there isn't evidence to support that headline
afavour 5y ago
> There’s no evidence that the deal directly affects coverage in either the news or editorial departments. Before the Facebook News deal, the Times famously published an op-ed titled “It’s Time to Break Up Facebook,” by Chris Hughes, a cofounder of Facebook turned critic. And since the deal, columns from Tim Wu and Kara Swisher, among others, have been similarly critical. In December, the editorial board welcomed a lawsuit calling for Facebook to be broken up. It's kind of a throwaway passage in the article but it feels like a crucial point. Maybe I'm wrong but "buying off" to me strongly suggests something along the lines of a bribe. We're going to give you this cash, nudge nudge, wink wink, maybe that negative stuff you print about us goes away. My question is: is this actually happening? The core conflict here isn't new, surely. Newspapers have taken advertising money from news-making companies since time immaterial. The question has always been whether that money affects coverage. And so far it seems like "no", or "not yet". And there's a very worthy debate to be had here, much as there always has been about advertising in news media, but the headline doesn't do that debate justice.
- FpUser 5y ago
  >"My question is: is this actually happening?" I think what is happening is they are buying their ability to publish news. Once accomplished you will see plenty of those "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" I think.
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  Tech blogs are regularly bribed for good coverage, and tech companies are known for doing it. Nobody bloody cares about integrity of journalism. The Verge has historically been very favorable to Apple and Google. Why? They get exclusive interviews with Google and Apple executives. An interview with Sundar Pichai is worth millions in ad revenue, and if a blog is too critical of a company, they won't get interviews. Offering an interview to a news outlet is really not significantly different from cutting them a check. Apple has been known for pretty much cutting out any site that dares to step out of line. I think whatever is left of Gizmodo is still banned from Apple events after Gizmodo reported about getting hands on a prototype iPhone.
  - 5y ago
granzymes 5y ago
> creates the impression that Facebook is a normal, legitimate business rather than a monopolistic rogue corporation Incendiary claims.
WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago
Let us be real, folks: - You are reading this comment. - You are likely highly or fairly paid. - You don’t pay for your news (to a partisan substack doesn’t count) Edit: Added likely to comment. Icing on the cake is if you consume almost all your news through Twitter / social media. Maybe stop clicking and reacting and instead stop and reflect your role in all this? Cold hard truth? We caused this problem, Facebook is a great scapegoat, and most here likely contributed to bigger issues with information distribution in one way or another through their employment.
- Yajirobe 5y ago
  > - You are highly or fairly paid. Not everyone is from the US
  - shadow28 5y ago
    Software engineers are highly paid in most parts of the world though.
- corpMaverick 5y ago
  Right. I would like to have Netflix for news. Pay $10 a month. And have access to NYT, NPR, The Economist et al. I want it to be easy to sign in and out.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I would also like everything to be cheaper. With password managers, it’s not that much work to visit multiple websites.
    - corpMaverick 5y ago
      > I would also like everything to be cheaper. The point is that with "Netfilx for news" you increase the number of people paying. Thus decreasing cost for the individuals. > With password managers, it’s not that much work to visit multiple websites. It is not just about managing logins. You also have to manage payments. And make the decisions about what you want to read months in advance. People hate making decisions. A lot of people end up jumping over the fence and not paying at all.
johjohjoh 5y ago
Why? The media has been stealing all of their articles and news pieces by eavesdropping on people with good ideas since the 1950s. They don't deserve a dime of your money or Facebooks money.
1cvmask 5y ago
The apocryphal Mark Twain: If You Don’t Read the Newspaper You Are Uninformed, If You Do Read the Newspaper You Are Misinformed
minikites 5y ago
Facebook would have to be stupid to not be bribing everyone in sight, it's not like anyone is going punish them. Anyone who still uses the site must think it's a good deal and additional information clearly won't change their mind at this point. The US government can't regulate any corporation without 50% of the population losing their shit at "big government overreach". There's no mechanism beyond those two to affect change in a corporation.
GCA10 5y ago
Handy rule of thumb: On any headline with a question, the likely answer is: "No." Or, more precisely: "No, but we wanted to tantalize you into reading this piece, where we'll go through 15 paragraphs of innuendo and then decide that it doesn't quite add up."
einpoklum 5y ago
> ... cornering of the digital advertising market by the duopoly of Facebook and Google. Facebook’s threat to a free press ... Press beholden to the interests of the advertisers is also not free. Granted, it is much less tightly controlled than when a few giant corporation funnel in most ad money, but still. > The social media company is financially asphyxiating the news industry even as it gives oxygen to conspiracy theories and lies. Well, the traditional press has also promoted conspiracy theory and lies: Most prominent in the last two decades, and in NYT specifically, have been Iraq's supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction and Trump's supposed collusion with Russia. The difference is that, on Facebook, there is less control of which lies and conspiracy theories get promoted and which get suppressed. It seems the author of that column takes issue with this. Having said that - I do agree with the thesis of Facebook (and perhaps Google?) being a significant source of revenue for a media outlet meaning it has a measure of control over that outlet. Unfortunately, in Capitalism (especially less-regulated Capitalism) this tends to happen all over. > these agreements undermine industry-wide efforts that would help the smaller, ethnic, and local news organizations that are most desperately in need of help. Huh? The economy in general and mass media in particular have been driving smaller and local news outlets out of business for decades before Facebook was popular. Ben Bagdikian famously wrote about the dangerous concentration of (news) media already in 1983, see coverage here: https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0810/081003.html https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0810/081003.html Or check out the book on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/mediamonopoly00bagd https://archive.org/details/mediamonopoly00bagd
donohoe 5y ago
Judge for yourself: https://www.nytimes.com/search?dropmab=false&query=facebook&sort=best&types=article https://www.nytimes.com/search?dropmab=false&query=facebook&... Just note what is "Opinion" and what is "News". Opinion will always blow different says, but the reported news stories will be critical as necessary.
boomboomsubban 5y ago
Washington Monthly would know about the topic, having previously been accused of being one of the many media companies bought off by Bill Gates. Probably looking for a new sponsor themselves. https://reclaimthenet.org/gates-foundation-funds-facebook-fact-checkers/ https://reclaimthenet.org/gates-foundation-funds-facebook-fa...
balozi 5y ago
The real story here is that Facebook is paying off too few people. And, I bet Bezos is paying Bezos at WaPo. The man is a genius.
cratermoon 5y ago
It's always been the case that big advertisers influence the media that cover them. In the quaint old days there was a metaphorical "wall" between the business side and the news side, and neither could influence there other. In theory, that is. In practice, at a high enough level, the wall was less of a 16' fence topped with razor wire and more like police tape. Of course, we don't live in the quaint old days. There's no distinction between news as journalism and news as business. Writers are measured not on how good their reporting is, but on how much "engagement" it gets, which is just a proxy for how profitable. Is it a bribe or buyoff? Or just a failure of credibility? Newspapers used to have a position called the ombudsman to address just this scenario. The New York Times had a position called Public Editor. That position was eliminated in 2017[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_editor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_editor
csours 5y ago
Internet has made 'information' extremely cheap. I think we as a society are just beginning to come to terms with the implications of cheap information: Cheap disinformation, loss of traditional gatekeepers, loss of friction that enabled value capture by news organizations, etc.
ilaksh 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate
olivermarks 5y ago
I think we need new laws to make public funding of the media by interests who will benefit from a blind eye or active promotion of their goals much more visible. NPR is now heavily compromised by endless donations from foundations but still implies its products are funded 'by people like you'. At least they say 'made possible by a grant from the Warbucks Oligarch foundation' along with a cute little advertising line about philanthropy, making the world a better place etc etc. We need a lot more transparency. The Gates Foundation, which significantly funds the BBC, Guardian, NPR, and similar situations such as GMO bigPharma messaging, need to be made to publicly and prominently declare their interests and their agendas declared. 'Access' media is a huge problem because it purports to be unbiased when in actuality it is heavily agenda driven. In the case of Facebook & the NYT this is a very serious situation that further undermines what little is left of the NYT's credibility.
- kgog 5y ago
  Might it be time to support LJSA? https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7640 https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7640
  - olivermarks 5y ago
    i support that! Also this https://danafblankenhorn.substack.com/p/pay-per-day https://danafblankenhorn.substack.com/p/pay-per-day
graeme 5y ago
It is worth remembering the Australia fiasco. The Australian media led by Murdoch basically shook down Facebook until they came to am agreement to give the media kickbacks. Then Australia agreed not to apply its law. The European media has also demanded payments, even though the value flows from sending traffic to news sites and not the other way around. The media seems to believe it is entitled to be send traffic AND to be paid for it. Common story all over the world. So, to reduce those demands in America, Facebook pays kickbacks to the biggest media orgs. Here, the media publication is presenting it as a grant for favourable coverage. But the far more likely explanation is Facebook knows the media will shake it down for more money unless it gives them a payoff.
- _rpd 5y ago
  > the social media giant has been funneling money to America’s biggest news organizations—and hanging the rest of the press out to dry. The complaint here doesn't seem to be that Facebook is handing out money, but rather that not everyone is getting a cut.
  - lolinder 5y ago
    Which likewise suggests that the money's purpose is to avoid another Australia. If the large players are all appeased, the small ones stand little chance of influencing Congress on their own.
    - graeme 5y ago
      And further articles like this serve the purpose of requesting broader payoffs. Nowhere does the article question why the media gets money for nothing. The article assumes it is the media’s right and the money should be increased and more widely distributed.
- PoignardAzur 5y ago
  And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane.
grawprog 5y ago
So, Facebook is allowed to not only determine what is 'true' and 'untrue', on their platform, thereby giving certain news agencies essential monopolies on their platform and they're giving money to these organizations. Explain to me how Facebook is not considered a publisher again?
- Spivak 5y ago
  I mean I’m not a music publisher if I buy the rights to play some artist’s music in my store or whatever. Sure you could say FB is republishing a work which would imply some level of endorsement but paying for use on behalf of their users seems totally different.
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  Because the publisher/platform distinction is propaganda and it has never worked that way. Section 230 was only a thing in the US because a vapor brained judge applied third party liability to a financial forum for not catching fraud with one hundred percent perfection when moderating.
abraxas 5y ago
Well, the robber barons of the 19th century used to buy up the local press. The 21st century ones are going planet scale.
motohagiography 5y ago
Private mainstream media in Canada takes a lot of direct subsidy money from government as well (famously, $600m a few years ago), and it's to the point where it's debatable whether news outlets are real businesses producing something people need or desire, or they're just a policy objective. A real news business, one that publishes non-fiction content about current events that people want to read in exchange for subscriptions and advertiser dollars, is probably too fringe to be considered News at this point, because what most people really want is not what is officially approved as good for them. It's not official news unless it supports an establishment narrative, and somehow journalists and editors have come to believe they have official credentials unrelated to the truth and quality of their work that are deserving of some kind of recognition, and even deference. I don't even see this question of whether the NYTimes and other publishers might be compromised by FB money and others as a point of contention. It's like everyone already knows, but they're wrestling with whether they can tell people themselves. > As Doug Reynolds, the managing partner for the West Virginia newspapers suing Facebook and Google for damages, told me, “If the future of this industry is that we’re dependent on their goodwill, then we don’t have an independent press anymore.” Indeed.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  One of the things we're seeing (imho) is that many of the news institutions are trading on legacy reputation that is quickly running out. If you ask me which I trust more, 60 Minutes or Glenn Greenwald, I trust GG 1000x times more. I would even say I have a negative opinion of 60 minutes. There's a reason Glenn Greenwald is making crazy money on substack - its because his reporting comes off as more authentic than many 'official' news sources.
- Spivak 5y ago
  > It's not official news unless it supports an establishment narrative. You're so close that's it's annoying that at the last second you veered off into right field. There are two different things that you're confusing. There's capital-N news which is the purview of capital-J journalists; they create a verified bone dry account of events and statements made by those involved which is more historical record than something you might read with your morning coffee. You have always been able to find troves of this style of news but it's in the archives of news sites, not on the front page. Then there's storytelling which is what people actually want. Someone takes all the news together and, adds some context both historical and cultural, and some basic production value to create a cohesive narrative. This is a good thing! We want this because it shows us how individual events are connected and the bigger picture. It's the difference between reading police reports and local news articles and listening to a true crime podcasts -- the latter is waaaaaay more popular.
DiNovi 5y ago
thats one way to end critical coverage
bobthechef 5y ago
Advertising is the lifeblood of the media, so he who controls the advertising controls the media. Facebook is, like Google, an advertising broker. Therefore, Facebook, like Google, can influence and even decide who gets fed and who doesn't. It can shape the incentives of media companies and thus bring them into greater conformity with the preferences of the broker. In general, the centralizing of communication and control over communication is dangerous. These are private companies and they are controlled by some of the richest oligarchs in the world. They are unaccountable. Without regulation, they can do as they please. National and otherwise local law is skirted, except when countries fight back, like Poland which placed speech on social media back under the protection of the law. This way, you can explicitly legislate and thus decide politically what sorts of things are protected and which are forbidden and punished according to civilized standards and the rule of law, not because despots like Dorsey or Zuck say so. Want to punish slanderous and dangerous rumor? Make this a legal matter with accountability and transparency.
doggodaddo78 5y ago
As if buying-off politicians with $upport weren't enough, the fourth estate has to be controlled too. So independent media (fifth estate) is locked-out again. Manufactured consent and sentiment for the benefit of corporations, by corporations. And, real journalism makes one a heretical dissident like Chris Hedges. Inverted totalitarianism at work.
fossuser 5y ago
It's sometimes hard to tell the difference between a bribe and extortion. The case in Australia was definitely the latter and based on the quality of NYT reporting on these issues I wouldn't be surprised if it's the case here too.

401 points by panic 5y ago

Wrote this a little while back. Most news orgs -- especially local -- are being set up to fail in this environment. https://blog.nillium.com/news-was-never-meant-for-social-platforms/ https://blog.nillium.com/news-was-never-meant-for-social-pla...

ignoramous 5y ago
Whilst BigTech is busy eating News institutions at the top, PE firms are busy devouring the bottom. https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/GvtNyOzGogc https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/GvtNyOzGogc
clairity 5y ago
a little marketing tip: summarize both the rationale and the conclusion. it’s tempting to think just one or the other is enough to entice the potential visitor, but no, it’s much easier to dismiss a link if it comes off as fantastic, implausible, or unsupported, which is more likely when you leave out one or the other. it’s more enticing to get an obvious full bite rather than an elusive nibble.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago

I’d really like to see a transcript of this interview with Thompson. My media literacy alarm is going off - why does the article splice together “far, far more” and “very much so” rather than quoting exactly what he said in context?

redisman 5y ago

Have you listened to any of their podcasts in the last 6 months? Their main ad is always some propaganda piece from Facebook

tediousdemise 5y ago
Not too long ago, Facebook took out a full page ad against Apple to gaslight consumers that anti-tracking was harming small business. This company is like a perforated colon that keeps leaking feces into the collective body of society. Pretty soon we'll go into septic shock.
- ErikVandeWater 5y ago
  Anti-tracking is harmful to all businesses who advertise, is it not?
  - randomsearch 5y ago
    not necessarily, no
  - Spivak 5y ago
    It absolutely is. I detest Facebook's level of tracking and invasion of people's privacy but I'll be damned if it doesn't enable businesses of any size to market with the same power previously reserved for supermassive brands for pennies. I feel like there's basically no allowable nuance in this discussion because holding any opinion than "tracking is 100% bad with literally no upsides for anyone other than ad networks any business that claims to get any value whatsoever is being misled" is taken as a defense of the current state of internet advertising and is the digital equivalent of burying your head in the sand while everyone else continues like you don't exist. If you can't understand and explain why the fence was put there then you'll get nowhere trying to argue that it should be torn down.
    - bogwog 5y ago
      > but I'll be damned if it doesn't enable businesses of any size to market with the same power previously reserved for supermassive brands for pennies You forgot to add this part: > At the expense of the consumer, and usually without their consent or knowledge. Facebook is the particular bad guy here, because we usually need to rally around one target to get anything done (and they are by far the worst offender). But the goal is not to take down Facebook, it's to limit or eliminate tracking and other practices that violate and exploit the privacy of people. Of course small businesses can benefit from doing what Facebook does, just like a homeless person can benefit by robbing a bank. That doesn't mean it's right. Stronger privacy laws might kill small businesses that engage in that type of behavior, but it's not going to kill the economy. New business will be born, and the free market will fix itself.

KMnO4 5y ago

Another great example of Betteridge’s Law of Headlines. If the headline is a question, the answer is no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

fighterpilot 5y ago
Funnily enough that law is empirically false, and most of the time (although it's near a coinflip) the answer is yes
- zepto 5y ago
  Do you have a link for the study?
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    I read the Wikipedia article linked above. They go over the studies there.
  - notlukesky 5y ago
    To Tome’s law?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- twobitshifter 5y ago
  Interesting, I found this article which backs you up http://calmerthanyouare.org/2015/03/19/betteridges-law.html http://calmerthanyouare.org/2015/03/19/betteridges-law.html
tome 5y ago
tome's law strikes again! "In any discussion about an article whose title is a question, Betteridge's law is mentioned with probability 1." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24545238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24545238

echelon 5y ago

I don't see how news is sustainable at current employment levels. Most papers cover the same stories from their own angle, but we don't need 1,000 duplicated takes. Social media bubbles headlines and links up from a potluck of sources, so there's no central paper to subscribe to and support. The end result is ad blocking everything, ignoring paywalls, and subscribing or paying no one. If I went to a paper's website instead of social media (HN, some curated reddits), I'd be inclined to subscribe, but none of them have great audience participation and discussion. If there was a Spotify for news journals, I'd be happy to subscribe, but that doesn't solve the issue of clickbait garbage winning over real journalism and soaking up all the money. Nor does it supply enough revenue to feed all the journalists. The solution, sadly, seems to be mass culling and centralization. The world is connected and nobody needs local newspapers anymore. Edit: not sure why I'm at -3 for making an observation. I'm not defending Facebook. The news industry doesn't appear to be sustainable in the modern age.

twobitshifter 5y ago
Isn’t Apple News+ the Spotify of newspapers? If you don’t want the social aspect of news, you can get the AP stories through the AP News app or subscribe to rss feeds to major papers. The AP keeps papers from covering the same story from their own angle, you’ll usually see the same AP stories printed in papers across the country. I agree it’s hard to filter the news on your own and quality journalism does seem to be going behind paywalls now. This isn’t great for an educated society.
- echelon 5y ago
  > Isn’t Apple News+ the Spotify of newspapers? I'm not on an Apple platform and don't even know what this is. I suppose it works for Apple subscribers?
  - chrjxnandns 5y ago
    Very helpful contribution to the conversation...
  - 5y ago

1cvmask 5y ago

No surprise here. Two peas in a pod. The assault on independant journalists (e.g Substack), independant voices (e.g. Clubhouse) and others continues unabated by the likes of NY Times elitists like Taylor Lorenz. Corporate media like NY Times even covered the original 2004 Harvey Weinstein expose and regularly lies on so many internatonal issues as well. https://www.thewrap.com/harvey-weinstein-new-york-times-bill-keller-editor-fabrizio-lombardo-2004-expose/ https://www.thewrap.com/harvey-weinstein-new-york-times-bill... Look at coverage of the caliphate series, Iraq war, Bolivian coup, Honduras, Guatemala and so many more.... The corporate media just wants to muzzle the truth by falsehoods by omission and so much more

kgog 5y ago
Looks like you drank the SV Kool Aid.
- stupendousyappi 5y ago
  I mentally tune out anyone who uses the word "elitist". To me, it's one of the clearest signs that they're arguing using prejudices rather than evidence.
  - notlukesky 5y ago
    Taylor Lorenz attended a 90 thousand a year high school. Is that not elitist? https://twitter.com/comfortablysmug/status/1369653913121677315?lang=en https://twitter.com/comfortablysmug/status/13696539131216773...
    - afavour 5y ago
      Why not discuss the actual coverage rather than attack the journalist?
      - 1cvmask 5y ago
        From the article below: The profound pathologies driving all of this were on full display on Saturday night as the result of a reckless and self-humiliating smear campaign by one of The New York Times’ star tech reporters, Taylor Lorenz. She falsely and very publicly accused Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen of having used the “slur” word “retarded” during a discussion about the Reddit/GameStop uprising. Lorenz lied. Andreessen never used that word. And rather than apologize and retract it, she justified her mistake by claiming it was a “male voice” that sounded like his, then locked her Twitter account as though she — rather than the person she falsely maligned — was the victim. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale-and-censorship https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale...

rriepe 5y ago

Every time you sell your credibility, you have to reduce the price.

resoluteteeth 5y ago

Accurate title: "Facebook is paying the New York Times for use of articles."

notlukesky 5y ago
How about “Facebook is paying off the New York Times for protection articles”
- eli 5y ago
  Because there isn't evidence to support that headline

afavour 5y ago

> There’s no evidence that the deal directly affects coverage in either the news or editorial departments. Before the Facebook News deal, the Times famously published an op-ed titled “It’s Time to Break Up Facebook,” by Chris Hughes, a cofounder of Facebook turned critic. And since the deal, columns from Tim Wu and Kara Swisher, among others, have been similarly critical. In December, the editorial board welcomed a lawsuit calling for Facebook to be broken up. It's kind of a throwaway passage in the article but it feels like a crucial point. Maybe I'm wrong but "buying off" to me strongly suggests something along the lines of a bribe. We're going to give you this cash, nudge nudge, wink wink, maybe that negative stuff you print about us goes away. My question is: is this actually happening? The core conflict here isn't new, surely. Newspapers have taken advertising money from news-making companies since time immaterial. The question has always been whether that money affects coverage. And so far it seems like "no", or "not yet". And there's a very worthy debate to be had here, much as there always has been about advertising in news media, but the headline doesn't do that debate justice.

FpUser 5y ago
>"My question is: is this actually happening?" I think what is happening is they are buying their ability to publish news. Once accomplished you will see plenty of those "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" I think.
ocdtrekkie 5y ago
Tech blogs are regularly bribed for good coverage, and tech companies are known for doing it. Nobody bloody cares about integrity of journalism. The Verge has historically been very favorable to Apple and Google. Why? They get exclusive interviews with Google and Apple executives. An interview with Sundar Pichai is worth millions in ad revenue, and if a blog is too critical of a company, they won't get interviews. Offering an interview to a news outlet is really not significantly different from cutting them a check. Apple has been known for pretty much cutting out any site that dares to step out of line. I think whatever is left of Gizmodo is still banned from Apple events after Gizmodo reported about getting hands on a prototype iPhone.
- 5y ago

granzymes 5y ago

> creates the impression that Facebook is a normal, legitimate business rather than a monopolistic rogue corporation Incendiary claims.

WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago

Let us be real, folks: - You are reading this comment. - You are likely highly or fairly paid. - You don’t pay for your news (to a partisan substack doesn’t count) Edit: Added likely to comment. Icing on the cake is if you consume almost all your news through Twitter / social media. Maybe stop clicking and reacting and instead stop and reflect your role in all this? Cold hard truth? We caused this problem, Facebook is a great scapegoat, and most here likely contributed to bigger issues with information distribution in one way or another through their employment.

Yajirobe 5y ago
> - You are highly or fairly paid. Not everyone is from the US
- shadow28 5y ago
  Software engineers are highly paid in most parts of the world though.
corpMaverick 5y ago
Right. I would like to have Netflix for news. Pay $10 a month. And have access to NYT, NPR, The Economist et al. I want it to be easy to sign in and out.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I would also like everything to be cheaper. With password managers, it’s not that much work to visit multiple websites.
  - corpMaverick 5y ago
    > I would also like everything to be cheaper. The point is that with "Netfilx for news" you increase the number of people paying. Thus decreasing cost for the individuals. > With password managers, it’s not that much work to visit multiple websites. It is not just about managing logins. You also have to manage payments. And make the decisions about what you want to read months in advance. People hate making decisions. A lot of people end up jumping over the fence and not paying at all.

johjohjoh 5y ago

Why? The media has been stealing all of their articles and news pieces by eavesdropping on people with good ideas since the 1950s. They don't deserve a dime of your money or Facebooks money.

1cvmask 5y ago

The apocryphal Mark Twain: If You Don’t Read the Newspaper You Are Uninformed, If You Do Read the Newspaper You Are Misinformed

minikites 5y ago

Facebook would have to be stupid to not be bribing everyone in sight, it's not like anyone is going punish them. Anyone who still uses the site must think it's a good deal and additional information clearly won't change their mind at this point. The US government can't regulate any corporation without 50% of the population losing their shit at "big government overreach". There's no mechanism beyond those two to affect change in a corporation.

GCA10 5y ago

Handy rule of thumb: On any headline with a question, the likely answer is: "No." Or, more precisely: "No, but we wanted to tantalize you into reading this piece, where we'll go through 15 paragraphs of innuendo and then decide that it doesn't quite add up."

einpoklum 5y ago

> ... cornering of the digital advertising market by the duopoly of Facebook and Google. Facebook’s threat to a free press ... Press beholden to the interests of the advertisers is also not free. Granted, it is much less tightly controlled than when a few giant corporation funnel in most ad money, but still. > The social media company is financially asphyxiating the news industry even as it gives oxygen to conspiracy theories and lies. Well, the traditional press has also promoted conspiracy theory and lies: Most prominent in the last two decades, and in NYT specifically, have been Iraq's supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction and Trump's supposed collusion with Russia. The difference is that, on Facebook, there is less control of which lies and conspiracy theories get promoted and which get suppressed. It seems the author of that column takes issue with this. Having said that - I do agree with the thesis of Facebook (and perhaps Google?) being a significant source of revenue for a media outlet meaning it has a measure of control over that outlet. Unfortunately, in Capitalism (especially less-regulated Capitalism) this tends to happen all over. > these agreements undermine industry-wide efforts that would help the smaller, ethnic, and local news organizations that are most desperately in need of help. Huh? The economy in general and mass media in particular have been driving smaller and local news outlets out of business for decades before Facebook was popular. Ben Bagdikian famously wrote about the dangerous concentration of (news) media already in 1983, see coverage here: https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0810/081003.html https://www.csmonitor.com/1983/0810/081003.html Or check out the book on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/mediamonopoly00bagd https://archive.org/details/mediamonopoly00bagd

donohoe 5y ago

Judge for yourself: https://www.nytimes.com/search?dropmab=false&query=facebook&sort=best&types=article https://www.nytimes.com/search?dropmab=false&query=facebook&... Just note what is "Opinion" and what is "News". Opinion will always blow different says, but the reported news stories will be critical as necessary.

boomboomsubban 5y ago

Washington Monthly would know about the topic, having previously been accused of being one of the many media companies bought off by Bill Gates. Probably looking for a new sponsor themselves. https://reclaimthenet.org/gates-foundation-funds-facebook-fact-checkers/ https://reclaimthenet.org/gates-foundation-funds-facebook-fa...

balozi 5y ago

The real story here is that Facebook is paying off too few people. And, I bet Bezos is paying Bezos at WaPo. The man is a genius.

cratermoon 5y ago

It's always been the case that big advertisers influence the media that cover them. In the quaint old days there was a metaphorical "wall" between the business side and the news side, and neither could influence there other. In theory, that is. In practice, at a high enough level, the wall was less of a 16' fence topped with razor wire and more like police tape. Of course, we don't live in the quaint old days. There's no distinction between news as journalism and news as business. Writers are measured not on how good their reporting is, but on how much "engagement" it gets, which is just a proxy for how profitable. Is it a bribe or buyoff? Or just a failure of credibility? Newspapers used to have a position called the ombudsman to address just this scenario. The New York Times had a position called Public Editor. That position was eliminated in 2017[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_editor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_editor

csours 5y ago

Internet has made 'information' extremely cheap. I think we as a society are just beginning to come to terms with the implications of cheap information: Cheap disinformation, loss of traditional gatekeepers, loss of friction that enabled value capture by news organizations, etc.

ilaksh 5y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate

olivermarks 5y ago

I think we need new laws to make public funding of the media by interests who will benefit from a blind eye or active promotion of their goals much more visible. NPR is now heavily compromised by endless donations from foundations but still implies its products are funded 'by people like you'. At least they say 'made possible by a grant from the Warbucks Oligarch foundation' along with a cute little advertising line about philanthropy, making the world a better place etc etc. We need a lot more transparency. The Gates Foundation, which significantly funds the BBC, Guardian, NPR, and similar situations such as GMO bigPharma messaging, need to be made to publicly and prominently declare their interests and their agendas declared. 'Access' media is a huge problem because it purports to be unbiased when in actuality it is heavily agenda driven. In the case of Facebook & the NYT this is a very serious situation that further undermines what little is left of the NYT's credibility.

kgog 5y ago
Might it be time to support LJSA? https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7640 https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7640
- olivermarks 5y ago
  i support that! Also this https://danafblankenhorn.substack.com/p/pay-per-day https://danafblankenhorn.substack.com/p/pay-per-day

graeme 5y ago

It is worth remembering the Australia fiasco. The Australian media led by Murdoch basically shook down Facebook until they came to am agreement to give the media kickbacks. Then Australia agreed not to apply its law. The European media has also demanded payments, even though the value flows from sending traffic to news sites and not the other way around. The media seems to believe it is entitled to be send traffic AND to be paid for it. Common story all over the world. So, to reduce those demands in America, Facebook pays kickbacks to the biggest media orgs. Here, the media publication is presenting it as a grant for favourable coverage. But the far more likely explanation is Facebook knows the media will shake it down for more money unless it gives them a payoff.

_rpd 5y ago
> the social media giant has been funneling money to America’s biggest news organizations—and hanging the rest of the press out to dry. The complaint here doesn't seem to be that Facebook is handing out money, but rather that not everyone is getting a cut.
- lolinder 5y ago
  Which likewise suggests that the money's purpose is to avoid another Australia. If the large players are all appeased, the small ones stand little chance of influencing Congress on their own.
  - graeme 5y ago
    And further articles like this serve the purpose of requesting broader payoffs. Nowhere does the article question why the media gets money for nothing. The article assumes it is the media’s right and the money should be increased and more widely distributed.
PoignardAzur 5y ago
And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane.

grawprog 5y ago

So, Facebook is allowed to not only determine what is 'true' and 'untrue', on their platform, thereby giving certain news agencies essential monopolies on their platform and they're giving money to these organizations. Explain to me how Facebook is not considered a publisher again?

Spivak 5y ago
I mean I’m not a music publisher if I buy the rights to play some artist’s music in my store or whatever. Sure you could say FB is republishing a work which would imply some level of endorsement but paying for use on behalf of their users seems totally different.
Nasrudith 5y ago
Because the publisher/platform distinction is propaganda and it has never worked that way. Section 230 was only a thing in the US because a vapor brained judge applied third party liability to a financial forum for not catching fraud with one hundred percent perfection when moderating.

abraxas 5y ago

Well, the robber barons of the 19th century used to buy up the local press. The 21st century ones are going planet scale.

motohagiography 5y ago

Private mainstream media in Canada takes a lot of direct subsidy money from government as well (famously, $600m a few years ago), and it's to the point where it's debatable whether news outlets are real businesses producing something people need or desire, or they're just a policy objective. A real news business, one that publishes non-fiction content about current events that people want to read in exchange for subscriptions and advertiser dollars, is probably too fringe to be considered News at this point, because what most people really want is not what is officially approved as good for them. It's not official news unless it supports an establishment narrative, and somehow journalists and editors have come to believe they have official credentials unrelated to the truth and quality of their work that are deserving of some kind of recognition, and even deference. I don't even see this question of whether the NYTimes and other publishers might be compromised by FB money and others as a point of contention. It's like everyone already knows, but they're wrestling with whether they can tell people themselves. > As Doug Reynolds, the managing partner for the West Virginia newspapers suing Facebook and Google for damages, told me, “If the future of this industry is that we’re dependent on their goodwill, then we don’t have an independent press anymore.” Indeed.

LegitShady 5y ago
One of the things we're seeing (imho) is that many of the news institutions are trading on legacy reputation that is quickly running out. If you ask me which I trust more, 60 Minutes or Glenn Greenwald, I trust GG 1000x times more. I would even say I have a negative opinion of 60 minutes. There's a reason Glenn Greenwald is making crazy money on substack - its because his reporting comes off as more authentic than many 'official' news sources.
Spivak 5y ago
> It's not official news unless it supports an establishment narrative. You're so close that's it's annoying that at the last second you veered off into right field. There are two different things that you're confusing. There's capital-N news which is the purview of capital-J journalists; they create a verified bone dry account of events and statements made by those involved which is more historical record than something you might read with your morning coffee. You have always been able to find troves of this style of news but it's in the archives of news sites, not on the front page. Then there's storytelling which is what people actually want. Someone takes all the news together and, adds some context both historical and cultural, and some basic production value to create a cohesive narrative. This is a good thing! We want this because it shows us how individual events are connected and the bigger picture. It's the difference between reading police reports and local news articles and listening to a true crime podcasts -- the latter is waaaaaay more popular.

DiNovi 5y ago

thats one way to end critical coverage

bobthechef 5y ago

Advertising is the lifeblood of the media, so he who controls the advertising controls the media. Facebook is, like Google, an advertising broker. Therefore, Facebook, like Google, can influence and even decide who gets fed and who doesn't. It can shape the incentives of media companies and thus bring them into greater conformity with the preferences of the broker. In general, the centralizing of communication and control over communication is dangerous. These are private companies and they are controlled by some of the richest oligarchs in the world. They are unaccountable. Without regulation, they can do as they please. National and otherwise local law is skirted, except when countries fight back, like Poland which placed speech on social media back under the protection of the law. This way, you can explicitly legislate and thus decide politically what sorts of things are protected and which are forbidden and punished according to civilized standards and the rule of law, not because despots like Dorsey or Zuck say so. Want to punish slanderous and dangerous rumor? Make this a legal matter with accountability and transparency.

doggodaddo78 5y ago

As if buying-off politicians with $upport weren't enough, the fourth estate has to be controlled too. So independent media (fifth estate) is locked-out again. Manufactured consent and sentiment for the benefit of corporations, by corporations. And, real journalism makes one a heretical dissident like Chris Hedges. Inverted totalitarianism at work.

fossuser 5y ago

It's sometimes hard to tell the difference between a bribe and extortion. The case in Australia was definitely the latter and based on the quality of NYT reporting on these issues I wouldn't be surprised if it's the case here too.