19 ms·

Are we cheering on Facebook? It feels like a situation where all the foul players--the platforms, the government, and the media--are all losing. The article au

by ysavir 3y ago

Are we cheering on Facebook? It feels like a situation where all the foul players--the platforms, the government, and the media--are all losing. The article author tries to say "Individual Canadians who use the platforms to find links to news are losers since news links will be blocked from the platform" but doesn't actually support that with a reason as to why that's a loss. Feels like a win to individual Canadians to me, even if some are upset at their inability to easily and immediately share clickbait and ragebait articles. I think those are the people we're really cheering on.

gspencley 3y ago
> Feels like a win to individual Canadians to me, even if some are upset at their inability to easily and immediately share clickbait and ragebait articles. I think those are the people we're really cheering on. This is a very naive view of what's going on or the impact. I don't like reading clickbait or ragebait articles that people share. If connections of mine do that on social media too often I usually mute them. I also don't "get" my news "from" Facebook. As in, if Facebook were to try and suggest news articles to me I would find that very annoying. I use FB Purity to give myself a very sanitized news feed that is configured to my liking. And yet this ridiculous bill that literally no one in Canada asked for is impacting me. How? Because I follow a local independent news outlet that posts stuff about my area that actually matters to me. These are NOT articles that people share and they are NOT shit that Facebook is shoving my face. I CHOSE to click "Follow" on the FB Page for that news outlet so that I could find out about things like weather alerts, crime in my area and local events. That page is now gone from Facebook. What is INSANE to me is that this doesn't even seem like a case of Facebook distributing that news. It was that local news outlet that chose to create a Facebook page and create those links themselves in order to distribute their content on Facebook voluntarily. Yet that still, for some fucked up reason, falls under this insane law that no one asked for.
robertlagrant 3y ago
If the only news is clickbait and ragebait then Facebook is in the right. If the news is good then the Canadian government is in the wrong.
- ysavir 3y ago
  It's not about who's in the right. It's about whether this law, as it plays out, acts in the best interest of the people. We can't let our impression of how things should play out be determined by asking which self-serving powerful player deserves the right of way in policy making.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    I don't know where you're getting that from. I didn't mention asking who should get the right of way. Have you not just rephrased my "right" and "wrong" as "how things should play out". I'm not sure why someone would do that.
    - roflc0ptic 3y ago
      "right" and "wrong" are normative statements: quite literally they're statements about how things should be. IMO it's a reasonable read of your comment
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        I wasn't saying who should get right of way. Just because right and wrong can imply the word "should" in a hypergeneric sense doesn't mean I was talking about right of way.
        roflc0ptic 3y ago
        I believe you! I just don't understand what you meant, then.
    - ysavir 3y ago
      You're right. You weren't speaking with that intent and I brought that context into it. My apologies there. I think I was responding to the idea that because the government was acting in self-serving ways, that we were necessarily cheering on Facebook, and that what facebook is doing is "standing up to...corruption", when their own efforts are a corruption of a different kind. The phrasing there made me feel like I was being made to choose--that I was either cheering for facebook or for their rivals in this situation--and I didn't feel that that choice was accurate. It's possible to think that both parties are in the wrong, even if they are on opposite sides here. Your follow up post reinforced that feeling as it maintained the idea that one party or the other was in the right, but that post was also a direct response to what I said, and not necessarily a continuation of what you had posted earlier. So by continuing that thread I reinforced my own misinterpretation. I will try to better understand my own reactions to people's posts in the future, and be better in responding in the appropriate context, not with a shift.
bastardoperator 3y ago
I just find it odd that someone interested in consuming news would choose to do so out of a dumpster when given a plethora of non-dumpster options.
- zlg_codes 3y ago
  Which non-dumpster news outlets are there? Just about every big name can be counted on to spin in favor of their owners' political aims. Fox News and friends are obvious propaganda. I've not been impressed with CBS, NBC, CNN, WaPo, The New Yorker, all sorts of outlets that I cannot rely on for truthful and relevant news. I have taken to using a website I found that combines and aggregates all the mainstream news sites, so I can see from an aerial view what -- if any -- message they're trying to sell that day. And it's weird how close in lockstep these media outlets talk about things. I see a lot of criticism on the Internet amount to "If they only used the good stuff..." So, where is it?
- ethbr0 3y ago
  Because it's not a dumpster. It's a casino with flashing lights, exciting noise, and free cocktails.
  - labster 3y ago
    It’s the same picture.jpg
  - _Algernon_ 3y ago
    A shiny, polished dumpster is still a dumpster.
- delfinom 3y ago
  Your average person never gave a shit about good content. That's the proof that's been visible for centuries, where there were newspapers, there were tabloids with giant click-bait headlines to make a quick buck and it always worked, because people don't want to read, they want just a headline to tell them how to feel. But those average people are the majority of "views" of said paper, that's why all these media outlets are desperate for that ad revenue. They already have subscriber bases that are actual real interest in reading content. Welcome to the sad reality of our world, crack open a cold one and laugh with the rest of us.
codedokode 3y ago
A news media producing "clickbait and ragebait" articles should not be covered by the law because it requires to follow a code of ethics (article 27 [1] ) unless it is a Indigenous news organization. I think the articles you mention definitely are not compatible with "code of ethics whose standards of professional conduct require adherence to the recognized processes and principles of the journalism profession, including fairness, independence and rigour in reporting news and handling sources" so please rest assured that they can be shared free of charge. Sadly, clickbait articles from Indigenous news organization might disappear. [1] http://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/royal-assent#ID0E01C0AA http://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/royal-as...
- BeFlatXIII 3y ago
  > unless it is a Indigenous news organization Sounds like an easy way to get on the grift train.
Apofis 3y ago
The news is best consumed stale. It's a big win for Canadian consumers.
treprinum 3y ago
First, nobody really wanted FB to show news articles especially when they were always biased to something they wanted to propagate (like when Google started pushing news to Android devices out of blue without any prior request). Second, the main utility of FB was to connect with friends and acquaintances and have some cursory look into their lives. There is this thing called Internet to browse newspapers if one wishes to anyway. Meta, please ban newspapers all around the world!
- bandyaboot 3y ago
  This. People using FB to share information outside their lives has been a net bane to society. Unfortunately, FB profits immensely from the damage it causes.
  - account42 3y ago
    > People using FB [...] has been a net bane to society. Agreed.
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    According to the people doing it or outside observers? Seems like there are lots of things that are net negatives in the opinion of one group of people despite many others choosing it for themselves. Should we ban soda? Granulated sugar in general? Rap music? The liberal arts? This is the government acting as a parent. We need a society of adults, not children.
    - kaffeeringe 3y ago
      Yes, we created a world, where many people make objectively bad decisions, because we let companies become so big and so rich that they can pay the cleverest mind to influence us. I too want a free society of adults, that can choose their own fate. But we as single persons do not have the capacities to find a reasonable way through all the bullshit that rich organisations feed us every day. Look at supermarkets: everything after the department for fruits an vegetables is basically bad for us. Science prooves that. But we have to pass all this convenience food that promises to be cheap and fast and healthy and it isn't. And most people somehow learned that in school but ever since they are being informed by the companies.
nonethewiser 3y ago
> but doesn't actually support that with a reason as to why that's a loss Because people want to share and visit news links. Evidenced by the fact that they shared and visited news links often. Its a bit condescending to suggest you know whats better for people than the people freely choosing to engage in news articles. Besides, the Canadian law doesn’t even ban news sharing on Facebook. It just institutes a shakedown.
- trompetenaccoun 3y ago
  Exactly right. It's shocking to see such an authoritarian-type viewpoint that far at the top. I don't like Facebook (never had an account) but people sharing links is none of the government's business.
KingOfCoders 3y ago
For those people who equate the internet with Facebook I guess it is a loss.

by ysavir 3y ago

gspencley 3y ago

> Feels like a win to individual Canadians to me, even if some are upset at their inability to easily and immediately share clickbait and ragebait articles. I think those are the people we're really cheering on. This is a very naive view of what's going on or the impact. I don't like reading clickbait or ragebait articles that people share. If connections of mine do that on social media too often I usually mute them. I also don't "get" my news "from" Facebook. As in, if Facebook were to try and suggest news articles to me I would find that very annoying. I use FB Purity to give myself a very sanitized news feed that is configured to my liking. And yet this ridiculous bill that literally no one in Canada asked for is impacting me. How? Because I follow a local independent news outlet that posts stuff about my area that actually matters to me. These are NOT articles that people share and they are NOT shit that Facebook is shoving my face. I CHOSE to click "Follow" on the FB Page for that news outlet so that I could find out about things like weather alerts, crime in my area and local events. That page is now gone from Facebook. What is INSANE to me is that this doesn't even seem like a case of Facebook distributing that news. It was that local news outlet that chose to create a Facebook page and create those links themselves in order to distribute their content on Facebook voluntarily. Yet that still, for some fucked up reason, falls under this insane law that no one asked for.

robertlagrant 3y ago

If the only news is clickbait and ragebait then Facebook is in the right. If the news is good then the Canadian government is in the wrong.

ysavir 3y ago
It's not about who's in the right. It's about whether this law, as it plays out, acts in the best interest of the people. We can't let our impression of how things should play out be determined by asking which self-serving powerful player deserves the right of way in policy making.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  I don't know where you're getting that from. I didn't mention asking who should get the right of way. Have you not just rephrased my "right" and "wrong" as "how things should play out". I'm not sure why someone would do that.
  - roflc0ptic 3y ago
    "right" and "wrong" are normative statements: quite literally they're statements about how things should be. IMO it's a reasonable read of your comment
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      I wasn't saying who should get right of way. Just because right and wrong can imply the word "should" in a hypergeneric sense doesn't mean I was talking about right of way.
      - roflc0ptic 3y ago
        I believe you! I just don't understand what you meant, then.
  - ysavir 3y ago
    You're right. You weren't speaking with that intent and I brought that context into it. My apologies there. I think I was responding to the idea that because the government was acting in self-serving ways, that we were necessarily cheering on Facebook, and that what facebook is doing is "standing up to...corruption", when their own efforts are a corruption of a different kind. The phrasing there made me feel like I was being made to choose--that I was either cheering for facebook or for their rivals in this situation--and I didn't feel that that choice was accurate. It's possible to think that both parties are in the wrong, even if they are on opposite sides here. Your follow up post reinforced that feeling as it maintained the idea that one party or the other was in the right, but that post was also a direct response to what I said, and not necessarily a continuation of what you had posted earlier. So by continuing that thread I reinforced my own misinterpretation. I will try to better understand my own reactions to people's posts in the future, and be better in responding in the appropriate context, not with a shift.

bastardoperator 3y ago

I just find it odd that someone interested in consuming news would choose to do so out of a dumpster when given a plethora of non-dumpster options.

zlg_codes 3y ago
Which non-dumpster news outlets are there? Just about every big name can be counted on to spin in favor of their owners' political aims. Fox News and friends are obvious propaganda. I've not been impressed with CBS, NBC, CNN, WaPo, The New Yorker, all sorts of outlets that I cannot rely on for truthful and relevant news. I have taken to using a website I found that combines and aggregates all the mainstream news sites, so I can see from an aerial view what -- if any -- message they're trying to sell that day. And it's weird how close in lockstep these media outlets talk about things. I see a lot of criticism on the Internet amount to "If they only used the good stuff..." So, where is it?
ethbr0 3y ago
Because it's not a dumpster. It's a casino with flashing lights, exciting noise, and free cocktails.
- labster 3y ago
  It’s the same picture.jpg
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  A shiny, polished dumpster is still a dumpster.
delfinom 3y ago
Your average person never gave a shit about good content. That's the proof that's been visible for centuries, where there were newspapers, there were tabloids with giant click-bait headlines to make a quick buck and it always worked, because people don't want to read, they want just a headline to tell them how to feel. But those average people are the majority of "views" of said paper, that's why all these media outlets are desperate for that ad revenue. They already have subscriber bases that are actual real interest in reading content. Welcome to the sad reality of our world, crack open a cold one and laugh with the rest of us.

codedokode 3y ago

A news media producing "clickbait and ragebait" articles should not be covered by the law because it requires to follow a code of ethics (article 27 [1] ) unless it is a Indigenous news organization. I think the articles you mention definitely are not compatible with "code of ethics whose standards of professional conduct require adherence to the recognized processes and principles of the journalism profession, including fairness, independence and rigour in reporting news and handling sources" so please rest assured that they can be shared free of charge. Sadly, clickbait articles from Indigenous news organization might disappear. [1] http://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/royal-assent#ID0E01C0AA http://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/royal-as...

BeFlatXIII 3y ago
> unless it is a Indigenous news organization Sounds like an easy way to get on the grift train.

Apofis 3y ago

The news is best consumed stale. It's a big win for Canadian consumers.

treprinum 3y ago

First, nobody really wanted FB to show news articles especially when they were always biased to something they wanted to propagate (like when Google started pushing news to Android devices out of blue without any prior request). Second, the main utility of FB was to connect with friends and acquaintances and have some cursory look into their lives. There is this thing called Internet to browse newspapers if one wishes to anyway. Meta, please ban newspapers all around the world!

bandyaboot 3y ago
This. People using FB to share information outside their lives has been a net bane to society. Unfortunately, FB profits immensely from the damage it causes.
- account42 3y ago
  > People using FB [...] has been a net bane to society. Agreed.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  According to the people doing it or outside observers? Seems like there are lots of things that are net negatives in the opinion of one group of people despite many others choosing it for themselves. Should we ban soda? Granulated sugar in general? Rap music? The liberal arts? This is the government acting as a parent. We need a society of adults, not children.
  - kaffeeringe 3y ago
    Yes, we created a world, where many people make objectively bad decisions, because we let companies become so big and so rich that they can pay the cleverest mind to influence us. I too want a free society of adults, that can choose their own fate. But we as single persons do not have the capacities to find a reasonable way through all the bullshit that rich organisations feed us every day. Look at supermarkets: everything after the department for fruits an vegetables is basically bad for us. Science prooves that. But we have to pass all this convenience food that promises to be cheap and fast and healthy and it isn't. And most people somehow learned that in school but ever since they are being informed by the companies.

nonethewiser 3y ago

> but doesn't actually support that with a reason as to why that's a loss Because people want to share and visit news links. Evidenced by the fact that they shared and visited news links often. Its a bit condescending to suggest you know whats better for people than the people freely choosing to engage in news articles. Besides, the Canadian law doesn’t even ban news sharing on Facebook. It just institutes a shakedown.

trompetenaccoun 3y ago
Exactly right. It's shocking to see such an authoritarian-type viewpoint that far at the top. I don't like Facebook (never had an account) but people sharing links is none of the government's business.

KingOfCoders 3y ago

For those people who equate the internet with Facebook I guess it is a loss.