3 ms·

No. Speaking as a Canadian, it’s a garbage protectionist bill. News in Canada is owned by the largest media companies (Rogers, Bell Canada, and the federal gove

No. Speaking as a Canadian, it’s a garbage protectionist bill. News in Canada is owned by the largest media companies (Rogers, Bell Canada, and the federal government). This bill would have Meta paying money to news sites for links the news sites themselves post on Facebook! It’s completely backwards! The news sites should be paying Facebook to advertise on their platform! Not that I’m a big fan of Facebook or anything. But it’s totally understandable to me that Facebook would ban all links to Canadian news sites if this bill passes. It represents unlimited liability for them!

thomasahle 4y ago
I suppose both Facebook and the news sites benefit from the linking. The news site benefits from the traffic and Facebook for having interesting content to show their users. This law seems more about negotiating how much of the pie each part gets.
- chongli 4y ago
  Facebook doesn't really have any shortage of content to show to users though. Users generate their own content and the feed algorithm scoops it up and displays it. If Facebook banned all news links tomorrow most users wouldn't notice but the news sites definitely would!
  - thomasahle 4y ago
    Facebook has been suffering from users leaving the platform for a while. And even if removing news leads to just a 1% drop in user time spent on the platform, it's a lot of money lost. Of course removing news could also make it a nicer place to be, so maybe it'll increase user engagement. Who knows.
    - chongli 4y ago
      I'm biased. I'm the type of person who unfollows their friends for posting too much news/politics/outrage material. I've curated my Facebook feed to be mostly about things I'm interested in; hobbies and the like. I would actually celebrate if Facebook blocked all news. I also pretty thoroughly detest most of the news media in Canada. It's become far too politicized, and it strictly presents one side of the political spectrum but not in a good way. It tries to take some pretty radical ideas and normalize them, trying to pass them off as mainstream. It also happens to be pretty uncritical of the big media corporations in Canada, not wanting to bite the hand that feeds it. It doesn't seem like a coincidence that Canadians pay some of the highest rates in the world for wireless and internet access.
pupppet 4y ago
Wrong. Google and Facebook do not generate their own content, they are absolutely nothing without the content we provide them. The fact they've muscled their way into being the gatekeepers to everything does not entitle them to any money.
- chongli 4y ago
  They provide the forum and the moderation and the users bring the content. Just like Hacker News. Anyone can do it, the hard part is getting users to show up. They're entitled to as much money as advertisers are willing to pay, just like any other site.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

thomasahle 4y ago

I suppose both Facebook and the news sites benefit from the linking. The news site benefits from the traffic and Facebook for having interesting content to show their users. This law seems more about negotiating how much of the pie each part gets.

chongli 4y ago
Facebook doesn't really have any shortage of content to show to users though. Users generate their own content and the feed algorithm scoops it up and displays it. If Facebook banned all news links tomorrow most users wouldn't notice but the news sites definitely would!
- thomasahle 4y ago
  Facebook has been suffering from users leaving the platform for a while. And even if removing news leads to just a 1% drop in user time spent on the platform, it's a lot of money lost. Of course removing news could also make it a nicer place to be, so maybe it'll increase user engagement. Who knows.
  - chongli 4y ago
    I'm biased. I'm the type of person who unfollows their friends for posting too much news/politics/outrage material. I've curated my Facebook feed to be mostly about things I'm interested in; hobbies and the like. I would actually celebrate if Facebook blocked all news. I also pretty thoroughly detest most of the news media in Canada. It's become far too politicized, and it strictly presents one side of the political spectrum but not in a good way. It tries to take some pretty radical ideas and normalize them, trying to pass them off as mainstream. It also happens to be pretty uncritical of the big media corporations in Canada, not wanting to bite the hand that feeds it. It doesn't seem like a coincidence that Canadians pay some of the highest rates in the world for wireless and internet access.

pupppet 4y ago

Wrong. Google and Facebook do not generate their own content, they are absolutely nothing without the content we provide them. The fact they've muscled their way into being the gatekeepers to everything does not entitle them to any money.

chongli 4y ago
They provide the forum and the moderation and the users bring the content. Just like Hacker News. Anyone can do it, the hard part is getting users to show up. They're entitled to as much money as advertisers are willing to pay, just like any other site.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]