4 ms·

> Facebook has decided to be unreasonable, irresponsible, and started blocking news. Are they acting unreasonably though? There is a product, and the governmen

by chomp 3y ago

> Facebook has decided to be unreasonable, irresponsible, and started blocking news. Are they acting unreasonably though? There is a product, and the government rules it has a price. Isn't Facebook allowed to go, sorry, I don't like that price?

fwlr 3y ago
If you analyze news as a product, it’s entirely reasonable for Facebook to refuse a price they don’t think is worth it. If you analyze news as something more like “a right to information” - “integral to the function of democracy”, as it was taught to me in school - then it does start to look unreasonable. The Canadian government is simply equivocating between these two analyses as it suits them (one could ask, if access to news is so important, whether it’s irresponsible and unreasonable for a government to try to charge a fee for it).
- bawolff 3y ago
  > If you analyze news as something more like “a right to information” - “integral to the function of democracy”, I don't get it - in this analysis would my local coffee shop have to buy and provide free newspapers to me? I'm all for access to free press being a fundamental right. Where you lose me is the part where a private corporation is supposed to subsidize the production of news for me.
  - jtr1 3y ago
    Meta is not your local coffee shop.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      But your local coffee shop probably does have a newspaper rack, so why is Facebook removing theirs such a big deal? Grab a newspaper the next time you get coffee. I don't use any meta property at all and it hasn't impeded my ability to read the news.
    - gameman144 3y ago
      It might be worthwhile to point out which bits of an analogy you take objection with when trying to refute an analogy. Meta is not my local coffee shop, but for the sake of the argument it might be fine to interchange them. If it's not fine to compare them as such, pointing out what aspects you think break the comparison is helpful, since it lets others in the discussion try to come up with a better argument/analogy and elevate the discussion overall.
    - bawolff 3y ago
      What is the relavent distinction?
      - jtr1 3y ago
        Size + market share.
  - bparsons 3y ago
    Between 1949 and 1987, US private companies were forced to pay for and produce high quality news content under guidelines set by the federal government. One of the conditions of ABC, CBS and NBC being given access to the airwaves was that they had to produce and distribute high quality news broadcasts. News was considered a public good. From wikipedia: The fairness doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows, or editorials. The doctrine did not require equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented. The demise of this FCC rule has been cited as a contributing factor in the rising level of party polarization in the United States.
    - jt2190 3y ago
      This is because the technology of the time severely limited the number of available channels. You’ve enumerated only three, but there weren’t many more than that. Clearly there are more than three points of view, so these laws helped balance things out until the technology for more channels arrived.
      - fwlr 3y ago
        “The technology of that time severely limited the number of available channels (broadcast channels being six megahertz wide due to severe interference etc)” is actually very comparable to “the market forces of our time severely limits the number of available distributors (network effects mean everyone is on Facebook and Twitter)”. To a government this is genuinely a strong argument for fairness doctrines. I personally don’t think the Canadian laws are like fairness doctrines, to me they are more like rent-seeking on valuable Canadian eyeballs, but if the Canadian government does see their laws as something like fairness doctrines, they have a pretty good case for it!
        bparsons 3y ago
        Canada is a pretty small market. Google and Meta have come in and (perhaps unintentionally) destroyed the tiny Canadian news media sector. I don't think it unreasonable that these companies, (largest on earth), pay a tiny fraction of a percentage of their Canadian revenue to help support that sector. Without our own news media, we are particularly vulnerable to the toxic influence of American right wing media, billionaire funded astro-turf media and any other foreign entity that wishes to push their agenda.
  - jojobas 3y ago
    There's this understanding of rights that implies that the government/some other entity has to provide everyone willing with the object of the right. Usually applied to healthcare, education and sometimes dwelling, errors out on right to bear arms.
    - bawolff 3y ago
      Even still, typically that looks like - if you run a hospital you have to treat everyone who comes in. It does not usually mean you as a private citizen are required to run a hospital if you dont want to. You are still allowed to shutdown your hospital. > errors out on right to bear arms. Lol, in canada that is definitely not a right you have.
      - jojobas 3y ago
        Which is funny, as Canadians inherited it from the UK and squandered it just like their ancestor.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Even if you think newspapers are vital to democracy, that doesn't oblige other businesses to sell newspapers. These newspapers own their own distribution mechanisms (websites) that are unaffected by the decision of one third party website to part ways with them. Okay, but facebook is really ubiquitous so that makes it different... How is this any different from... the one grocery store in town removing their newspaper rack? It's the one grocery store, everybody in town shops there so that makes it super important or something. But the newspapers are still free to mail their newspaper to everybody's front door. They still have their websites too, anybody who wants to read those newspapers can still do so.
  - derefr 3y ago
    It is, however, an interesting hypothetical to ask: if journalism itself is entirely unprofitable, such that all the newspaper companies eventually shut down, and private journalism stops being done — then what should we, as a public, do to retain our duty to be informed? Can there be such a thing as "non-partisan state-sponsored media"?
    - vkou 3y ago
      > Can there be such a thing as "non-partisan state-sponsored media"? You can add enough layers of indirection and semi-elected committees and cultural expectations to make it mostly non-partisan (Think the process for awarding government-funded research grants)[1], but a government devoted to turning it into a partisan organ can, with enough effort, eventually corrupt any such system. That's why you need to push back, and punish governments that are trying to shift cultural expectations that prevent weaponization of various public institutions. [1] The incentives for corrupting this are far greater for media than they are for science, so I can't expect it will work well in practice. PBS, NPR, CBC, BBC are always a political football for this reason.
    - geodel 3y ago
      If there were any enforceable duty to be informed. People would be buy newspaper subscriptions already to keep them running.
    - 3y ago
Brian_K_White 3y ago
No FB fan but yeah exactly. Yet another confusing the definitions of "what is reasonable" and "what I think".
kayodelycaon 3y ago
> Isn't Facebook allowed to go, sorry, I don't like that price? It really depends on the laws involved. If the government decides Facebook accepting certain terms is the cost of business, then Facebook doesn't get a say in it. Kind of like taxes. If you want to operate in a country, you're taxed accordingly. In general, you don't get to not pay a tax just because you don't want to. Basically, if the law allows, they can. Reasonability doesn't have a lot to do with things at the upper levels of government.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Kind of like taxes A tax to fund a newspaper subsidy would make sense. This isn't a tax. It's mandated commerce. We usually restrict that for protecting protected classes.
- ecshafer 3y ago
  This isn't a tax though. This is mandating that company A sell company B's product, and also pay a set price, which may or may not be a fair price. Should a company be willing to happily go out of business because they are not allowed to sell at a fair market price? This is actually a step further into absurdity since Facebook is not selling news articles, they are merely linking them. Its the equivalent of the Government telling me I need to pay Nike $5 every time I say the word Nike to someone.
jasonlotito 3y ago
Full disclosure, that's not the National Post saying this. That's a quote from Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. The way you are quoting the remark, some might assume this is the National Post saying this when it's really NP quoting someone else. This isn't to imply you are misrepresenting anything.

by chomp 3y ago

fwlr 3y ago

If you analyze news as a product, it’s entirely reasonable for Facebook to refuse a price they don’t think is worth it. If you analyze news as something more like “a right to information” - “integral to the function of democracy”, as it was taught to me in school - then it does start to look unreasonable. The Canadian government is simply equivocating between these two analyses as it suits them (one could ask, if access to news is so important, whether it’s irresponsible and unreasonable for a government to try to charge a fee for it).

bawolff 3y ago
> If you analyze news as something more like “a right to information” - “integral to the function of democracy”, I don't get it - in this analysis would my local coffee shop have to buy and provide free newspapers to me? I'm all for access to free press being a fundamental right. Where you lose me is the part where a private corporation is supposed to subsidize the production of news for me.
- jtr1 3y ago
  Meta is not your local coffee shop.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    But your local coffee shop probably does have a newspaper rack, so why is Facebook removing theirs such a big deal? Grab a newspaper the next time you get coffee. I don't use any meta property at all and it hasn't impeded my ability to read the news.
  - gameman144 3y ago
    It might be worthwhile to point out which bits of an analogy you take objection with when trying to refute an analogy. Meta is not my local coffee shop, but for the sake of the argument it might be fine to interchange them. If it's not fine to compare them as such, pointing out what aspects you think break the comparison is helpful, since it lets others in the discussion try to come up with a better argument/analogy and elevate the discussion overall.
  - bawolff 3y ago
    What is the relavent distinction?
    - jtr1 3y ago
      Size + market share.
- bparsons 3y ago
  Between 1949 and 1987, US private companies were forced to pay for and produce high quality news content under guidelines set by the federal government. One of the conditions of ABC, CBS and NBC being given access to the airwaves was that they had to produce and distribute high quality news broadcasts. News was considered a public good. From wikipedia: The fairness doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows, or editorials. The doctrine did not require equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented. The demise of this FCC rule has been cited as a contributing factor in the rising level of party polarization in the United States.
  - jt2190 3y ago
    This is because the technology of the time severely limited the number of available channels. You’ve enumerated only three, but there weren’t many more than that. Clearly there are more than three points of view, so these laws helped balance things out until the technology for more channels arrived.
    - fwlr 3y ago
      “The technology of that time severely limited the number of available channels (broadcast channels being six megahertz wide due to severe interference etc)” is actually very comparable to “the market forces of our time severely limits the number of available distributors (network effects mean everyone is on Facebook and Twitter)”. To a government this is genuinely a strong argument for fairness doctrines. I personally don’t think the Canadian laws are like fairness doctrines, to me they are more like rent-seeking on valuable Canadian eyeballs, but if the Canadian government does see their laws as something like fairness doctrines, they have a pretty good case for it!
      - bparsons 3y ago
        Canada is a pretty small market. Google and Meta have come in and (perhaps unintentionally) destroyed the tiny Canadian news media sector. I don't think it unreasonable that these companies, (largest on earth), pay a tiny fraction of a percentage of their Canadian revenue to help support that sector. Without our own news media, we are particularly vulnerable to the toxic influence of American right wing media, billionaire funded astro-turf media and any other foreign entity that wishes to push their agenda.
- jojobas 3y ago
  There's this understanding of rights that implies that the government/some other entity has to provide everyone willing with the object of the right. Usually applied to healthcare, education and sometimes dwelling, errors out on right to bear arms.
  - bawolff 3y ago
    Even still, typically that looks like - if you run a hospital you have to treat everyone who comes in. It does not usually mean you as a private citizen are required to run a hospital if you dont want to. You are still allowed to shutdown your hospital. > errors out on right to bear arms. Lol, in canada that is definitely not a right you have.
    - jojobas 3y ago
      Which is funny, as Canadians inherited it from the UK and squandered it just like their ancestor.
mcpackieh 3y ago
Even if you think newspapers are vital to democracy, that doesn't oblige other businesses to sell newspapers. These newspapers own their own distribution mechanisms (websites) that are unaffected by the decision of one third party website to part ways with them. Okay, but facebook is really ubiquitous so that makes it different... How is this any different from... the one grocery store in town removing their newspaper rack? It's the one grocery store, everybody in town shops there so that makes it super important or something. But the newspapers are still free to mail their newspaper to everybody's front door. They still have their websites too, anybody who wants to read those newspapers can still do so.
- derefr 3y ago
  It is, however, an interesting hypothetical to ask: if journalism itself is entirely unprofitable, such that all the newspaper companies eventually shut down, and private journalism stops being done — then what should we, as a public, do to retain our duty to be informed? Can there be such a thing as "non-partisan state-sponsored media"?
  - vkou 3y ago
    > Can there be such a thing as "non-partisan state-sponsored media"? You can add enough layers of indirection and semi-elected committees and cultural expectations to make it mostly non-partisan (Think the process for awarding government-funded research grants)[1], but a government devoted to turning it into a partisan organ can, with enough effort, eventually corrupt any such system. That's why you need to push back, and punish governments that are trying to shift cultural expectations that prevent weaponization of various public institutions. [1] The incentives for corrupting this are far greater for media than they are for science, so I can't expect it will work well in practice. PBS, NPR, CBC, BBC are always a political football for this reason.
  - geodel 3y ago
    If there were any enforceable duty to be informed. People would be buy newspaper subscriptions already to keep them running.
  - 3y ago

Brian_K_White 3y ago

No FB fan but yeah exactly. Yet another confusing the definitions of "what is reasonable" and "what I think".

kayodelycaon 3y ago

> Isn't Facebook allowed to go, sorry, I don't like that price? It really depends on the laws involved. If the government decides Facebook accepting certain terms is the cost of business, then Facebook doesn't get a say in it. Kind of like taxes. If you want to operate in a country, you're taxed accordingly. In general, you don't get to not pay a tax just because you don't want to. Basically, if the law allows, they can. Reasonability doesn't have a lot to do with things at the upper levels of government.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Kind of like taxes A tax to fund a newspaper subsidy would make sense. This isn't a tax. It's mandated commerce. We usually restrict that for protecting protected classes.
ecshafer 3y ago
This isn't a tax though. This is mandating that company A sell company B's product, and also pay a set price, which may or may not be a fair price. Should a company be willing to happily go out of business because they are not allowed to sell at a fair market price? This is actually a step further into absurdity since Facebook is not selling news articles, they are merely linking them. Its the equivalent of the Government telling me I need to pay Nike $5 every time I say the word Nike to someone.

jasonlotito 3y ago

Full disclosure, that's not the National Post saying this. That's a quote from Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. The way you are quoting the remark, some might assume this is the National Post saying this when it's really NP quoting someone else. This isn't to imply you are misrepresenting anything.