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at what point does this become news? dozens of people in a 140K employees company is not impactful, nor news worthy
by aldarisbm 3y ago
at what point does this become news? dozens of people in a 140K employees company is not impactful, nor news worthy
- ngetchell 3y agoPeople that use Google News probably want to know if Google is removing resources from the app.
- marbletiles 3y agoNews that affects the news industry always has a priority for news outlets, obviously. The fact that it's a tiny percentage of the staff is neither here nor there: if Apple laid off a few dozens from its core hardware design team, that'd be newsworthy too. There is a lot going on right now, with Google + Meta at the centre of possible regulation over news links; with the wars in Israel and Ukraine causing spikes in misinformation; with American trust in news at historic lows, and with X's disbanding of its Trust&Safety team leading to a rise in misinformation on the platform; any withdrawal from a service as prominent as Google's News is going to be noteworthy.
- CydeWeys 3y agoIt does seem like, because of all the national laws requiring big tech companies to pay news organizations merely for linking them, that big tech companies are increasingly getting out of the news business. And I don't blame them.
- acdha 3y agoI do think it’s worth remembering that Google makes enormous amounts of money from the news companies’ content and knows that a fair fraction of readers only read the summary without visiting the source. Sharing that ad revenue seems fair given the comparative levels of contribution.
- sh1tpostexposer 3y ago[flagged]
- blululu 3y agoThe laws in question are more or less devoid of any fiscal definition of fairness. They operate on a vague sense of envy that someone might be making more money than a preferred class. If the distribution of revenue were still profitable to Google then I don’t see why Google and Facebook would both be spending NRE to make less money.
- isykt 3y ago> They operate on a vague sense of envy that someone might be making more money than a preferred class They operate on the principle that without revenue the people doing the actual work of journalism will go out of business. Do you think the regulators are wrong on that point?
- blululu 3y agoA link tax is fine in principle and can be good policy in a number of situations. In practice such a tax needs to be set in such a way that all parties make money for their efforts. The rates given in the Canadian and Australian taxes were basically made up by media companies and represented a significant inflation of the value of their content.
- nradov 3y agoIf government regulators think we need more paid journalists then they could simply subsidize them, or even hire them directly like the BBC.
- Mordisquitos 3y agoI suppose it can be newsworthy to the extent that Google's news division has any editorial control over its content and influence on global discourse, and to what extent are those ~40 people a significant proportion of Google News itself—are they 5000 staff total, or are they just 200? What department took the brunt of the layoffs: admin, engineering, content...? To be clear, I have no opinion or information either way. I'm just providing some conditions under which it could be considered newsworthy.
- b112 3y agoMany countries are demanding Google pay for news reposting. This, while likely not linked, makes it more newsworthy.
- tyingq 3y agoWhat it might mean that they are specifically reducing headcount in their news division is the interest point. Not the impact to the company as a whole. Not just this, but for example, the discourse around big tech companies introducing bias into "news" is increasing. So reductions in those teams is itself newsworthy.
- CydeWeys 3y agoI think it's news because Google is still doing ongoing layoffs. Admittedly, smaller ones than in January, but it's still going on. So the overall SWE hiring landscape is still pretty rough.
- siggen 3y agoYes, in the past they would find positions internally.
- ulfw 3y agoThey're doing layoffs still across the board. e.g. Waymo two days ago https://www.marketwatch.com/story/alphabets-waymo-makes-more-job-cuts-b5e2ebea https://www.marketwatch.com/story/alphabets-waymo-makes-more...
- riku_iki 3y agoI think waymo is not google, they had some smaller alphabet companies dissolved I think in the past, and it just wasn't something newsworthy.
- imgabe 3y agoButs it in the news division, so it’s of great interest to the people who decide what’s newsworthy.
- speak_plainly 3y agoThere’s a lot of interest in Google News right now by G7 countries that want to shake it down for cash. Australia was successful, Canada is in the middle of the implementation of legislation (goes into effect in December) and Google is likely going to remove news and all news links in response, and it sounds like the US is in the process of drafting similar legislation.
- acdha 3y agoIt’s important because the news industry is important, and companies like Google siphoned off billions of dollars from the media. Democracies require well informed citizens and we know there are well-funded operations producing fake news-like stories trying to sway public opinion, which raises the concern that performative layoffs will leave Google less prepared to stop misinformation efforts.
- rrdharan 3y ago> companies like Google siphoned off billions of dollars from the media How exactly did they do that? You mean by being better distributors of advertisements?
- acdha 3y agoBetter advertisements, yes, but also things like adjusting search placement based on adopting Google’s ad network (AMP) or using their content to promote unrelated applications. AMP, Google+, Facebook pages & especially the infamous pivot to video were all exercises in pushing the media industry to promote things which were important to the ad companies but not their users. The other common trend here was offering competitive pricing until they had enough market share to force less generous terms. We joke about even prestige journalism writing like Buzzfeed but that was responding to the incentives set by ad-tech companies. Again, I’m not saying Google or Facebook should get nothing - only that we should recognize that paying journalists is expensive and they were successful for several decades at getting a great deal of profit from that work without compensation. If you don’t want to live in a world awash with quasi-spam, clickbait, and propaganda we need to figure out a better balance where people can make a decent income doing quality journalism.
- brainphreeze 3y agoGoogle are in charge of deciding what is considered misinformation?
- sandworm101 3y agoYes. Anyone operating a news service is volunteering to do exactly that. Dont want the responsibility? Dont open a news website or other service. Stick to cat videos.