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Meta to Wind Down Its News Feature in the US and Australia
- justinclift 3y agohttps://archive.is/FhBE7 https://archive.is/FhBE7
- artninja1988 3y ago"Lawmakers around the world have pushed Meta to compensate publishers for the stories that appear on the social network." Can somebody fill me in on what this means? Publishers want to get paid for people on facebook reposting their news stories? Or is it the embedding info you get from links?
- granzymes 3y agoYes, see the laws in Canada and Australia. Meta actually now completely blocks all news links in Canada because if users posts them (or the news sites post them themselves) they would be obligated to pay for those links.
- artninja1988 3y agoDoes that makes sense to anyone? I would assume they would be happy that someone posts a link to their article and drives traffic...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Kluggy 3y agoThe claim is it doesn’t drive traffic. People read the embedded snippet or what the person said it says and doesn’t follow to the site. I have no idea how true that is though.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Smoosh 3y agoIt makes sense in Australia as NewsCorp (and to a lesser extent, the other trad media companies) has much influence over public opinion via TV and newspapers, so political parties are beholden to it, and thus the legislation to force internet companies to pay news sources. See also https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/01/10/rupert-murdoch-nbn-kevin-rudd https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/01/10/rupe...
- incompatible 3y agoNews Corp typically supports the National/Liberal coalition in Australia. But Labor ministers have "quickly slammed said the decision, stating it “represents a dereliction of its commitment to the sustainability of Australian news media”." https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/01/facebook-news-tab-shut-down-end-australia-journalism-funding-deals https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/01/faceb... Edit: the article has apparently been edited and the specific quote has vanished, but there is more along the same lines.
- sundvor 3y agoFrom TLA: "Australian news publishers deserve fair compensation for the content they provide." I don't think this person quite understands that if Meta blocks all news, there's no "providing" at all! So it's fair enough that Meta makes this move. People might even venture outside the Facebook bubble, which would be a net positive.
- latency-guy2 3y agoJust so everyone reads this correctly, ministers are -slammed- being very pissy and throwing a tantrum towards Meta, not the law, in fact they're tripling down on it. The piss poor words of "Rod Sims" demonstrates it all in that article. Glad Meta is leaving, maybe news publishers can demonstrate their value to the people to naturally bring them to their platform. I doubt it though. They want all the eyes to look at them and will pay Meta + Google top dollar for it, but then demand they get paid back for a bad bet, then get in bed with the government to enforce their terms. Sickening. All the more reason to never visit, turn ad-block on to its most aggressive if I ever am forced to interact with these news sites.
- chrisfosterelli 3y agoAs best as I can tell it only makes sense to the Canadian media lobbyists who found an angle to blame "big tech" for their sagging print revenues.
- readthenotes1 3y agoWasn't there some calamity in Canada not too long ago where they were begging Facebook to show the news?
- chrisfosterelli 3y agoYes, you may be thinking of last year's wildfires where some politicians where blasting meta for blocking Canadian news during the fires. Of course, this didn't mean they were repealing the law and they still expected Meta to pay whatever rate per link the media orgs wanted for the privilege.
- chubs 3y agoI know i rarely read the articles, i just read the headlines and the small amount of blurb accompanying it. Perhaps a lot of people are like me, and the newspapers are supplying the headlines/blurbs/image and not even getting a clickthrough, and then people don't feel the need to visit the news sites to get 'up to date'. Perhaps that's why they feel they're missing out.
- raffraffraff 3y agoIn a world driven by advertising revenue, they would be happier if you visit their cesspit ad-filled website than if you converted the news into a headline, image and article summary. I guess significant% of people don't bother clicking on Facebook news links?
- gonzo41 3y agoThis is really good news. Mostly because it will deprive legacy media of indirect income they leech from facebook. I certainly don't love facebook, but I hate protectionist laws that were written by the media companies in service of the media companies.
- sirspacey 3y agoThe only companies worse than social media companies are media companies lol
- IntelMiner 3y agoActually it's even more insidious than that, at least in Australia Facebook (I refuse to call them Meta) is obligated to pay NewsCorp for articles posted Facebook then writes this off as a tax deduction Meanwhile Facebook pays effectively $0 in tax as-is because of all the various loopholes they exploit As a result the Australian tax payer effectively is paying Newscorp to continue existing
- _heimdall 3y agoIf Facebook is avoiding taxes via legal loopholes but aren't taking any kind of government subsidies, is it really as though tax payers are paying Newscorp? No tax dollars are being spent to cover anything, the money is just never being paid by Facebook to the government because the government created carve-outs that let Facebook to reduce their liability. Caveat here, I'm neither a fan of Facebook or tax loop holes. In my opinion tax law should be exceedingly simple and easy to calculate. I don't want to defend Facebook here, but saying the public is paying for this feels like a slight of hand.
- arrosenberg 3y agoTaxes not paid by private entities are, by definition, money out of the public coffer.
- ars 3y ago
- vharuck 3y agoLarge discussion about a similar bill in Canada: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36524662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36524662
- kirrent 3y agoYeah, the publishers want compensation for the headline, photo, and text excerpt that appear on the social network. While these are really small excerpts, the publishers contend that it's sufficient to reduce demand for the article itself from users who'll read the headline and preview, maybe interact, and continue scrolling on the social network. It's not surprising that users will do that to me. We see plenty of people commenting on HN without reading the article, and that's just based on a text only headline.
- bombcar 3y agoAnd these same corporations stop having comments on their own site, and then complain that commentators are using other sites. It all seems so silly to me.
- aussieguy1234 3y agoThey could just drop their opengraph tags if they don't want their content shared in this way. Of course, a simple link will be much less appealing to click on for most users.
- kirrent 3y agoMuch less appealing to even read in the first place. Plus you're also in competition with other publishers who will happily gobble up the impressions you used to take. So even if you're willing to play hardball as a publisher, you don't have any real capacity to coerce the social media company. It's this imbalance in bargaining power that the Australian law at least aims to change (and it's why it's administered by the competition and consumer commission).
- theamk 3y agoSeems like the real problem is "competition with other publishers who will happily gobble up the impressions", and the goal of the law is to reduce such competition? I hate Facebook, but I think laws to reduce competition are pretty stupid and do not benefit public.
- ArchD 3y agoIt's fair that Meta does not have to pay the legacy big media racket the protection fee, but unfortunately this hurts the players that were not asking for the protection fee in the first place. Maybe small players will hurt from the reduced exposure, to the advantage of the big players.
- Moldoteck 3y agothat's how stupid laws work
- aussieguy1234 3y agoIt should be fairly simple to come up with some standard to block social media sharing i.e some .nosocial file in your root dir = don't share this site on social media. Of course, if the news companies don't implement such a standard and they keep their social media meta tags to encourage sharing, surely that means that they don't mind their content being shared and shouldn't be trying to charge some fee for the privilege?
- supriyo-biswas 3y agoFacebook already understands robots.txt rules for FacebookBot, and maybe Meta can use that as a signal to exclude such websites. Of course, news companies would rather throw a fit and call big tech evil rather than trying to figure out how to provide news to users in the most efficient way possible.
- aussieguy1234 3y agoThe main issue they have is that in the old days, Newspapers made most of their money from ads. Now all the ads are online and that revenue is taken by Google/Social media platforms. They consider Facebook and social media to be their competitor in this sense, sometimes even more so than other media companies. So I think this is all some ploy by old media to try to claw back some of that revenue, which they legitimately lost to better performing technology.
- supriyo-biswas 3y agoI’ve commented elsewhere that news companies are against any form of collaboration. They could form a coalition and run their own ad network, if they are so concerned against Google taking a slice of their ad revenue.
- DinaCoder99 3y agoI'm firmly convinced that social media is little more than a scapegoat here. Yes, there are incentives to spread polarizing news and echo chambers, but this is an endemic problem in journalism that sells to both consumers and advertisers. The idea that the problem will somehow vanish if we no longer discuss the world around us publicly (or indeed that those running social media are even capable of stopping this) is absurd.
- lopkeny12ko 3y agoHonestly, great move by Meta. 1. Regulators: We're going to require you do X on your product Y. 2. Facebook: That literally makes no sense. If you pass this law we will simply stop offering Y in your country. 3. Regulators: We're going to pass the law anyway. 4. Facebook: Does exactly as they warned. 5. Ultimately, the regulators and the citizens lose. Hopefully the citizens are vocal enough about it to make regulators understand just how braindead they are behaving.
- yieldcrv 3y agoIt wasn’t a braindead move, it wasnt about providing that service it was a punitive measure to prevent exposure to that service, with the icing on the cake of paying publishers if Facebook complied with it. Facebook News is toxic, the market chose something else partially because of their representatives’ attention showing what it is, Facebook exited the market. Deprecated, specifically, until their existing agreements expire.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoPerfect use of the shocked pikachu meme
- blitzar 3y ago5. Ultimately, the citizens win Nothing of value for humanity was lost. Based on past form, not having a facebook dopamine targeting news feed is considered a huge gain for the entire human race (even for the facebook execs who have (a little bit) less money and less problems).
- trog 3y agoOne thing of value that was lost was that the ABC (Australian national broadcaster) had hired 60 reporters, mostly in regional areas (typically more undeserved by journalists) from the revenue they got from this deal. Those jobs are now at risk. (This is all according to the ABC coverage on this topic.)
- technion 3y agoAs an Australian that flicks through Facebook every so often... Australian news on Facebook every day is from a small list of headlines: "Shoppers flock to amazing new item at Kmart", "Australians can't believe new amazing item at Woolworths". I don't believe I've ever seen a "news article" on Facebook that wasn't a thinly veiled advertisement, which these shops are quite capable of buying direct from Facebook without pretending it's "Journalism".
- blitzar 3y agoA few notes and corrections. I don't believe I've ever seen a "news article" anywhere that wasn't a thinly veiled advertisement.
- linuxandrew 3y agoLast time Facebook decided to censor the news in Australia they ended up censoring links a bunch of government pages like links to emergency services[1]. Fortunately I've since deleted my account but the whole posturing around ownership of people's posts and shares is just wild to me. On a semi-related note I once had a message in FB Messenger that was blocked - it refused to send and gave me an error that the link wasn't allowed. Can't remember what it was as it was a long time ago. But the Facebook censorship situarion has been dire for some time... 1: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/may/29/deliberate-ploy-whistleblowers-reveal-why-facebooks-australia-news-ban-included-non-news-sites https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/may/29/deliberat...
- thr0waway302 3y agoThis is a legal issue due to Australia forcing Facebook to pay news companies for links to their websites. I wouldn't call this censorship since the news companies are just trying to use the law to squeeze revenue for their dying business model. (Hardly anyone subscribes to newspapers anymore)
- Moldoteck 3y agoit's basically australia's censorship, not fb's. Australia forced fb to pay news providers for each link _each user_ does share on it's platforms, which means huge money for meta for something they don't make money back, so they decided to comply with australian law
- linuxandrew 3y agoThat's a cost of doing business, much like paying tax. It's entirely on Facebook for censoring users in Australia. They could choose... not to do business in Australia, shut down their office and stop taking ad dollars from Australian companies. It's hard to feel bad for Facebook because they're worth hundreds of billions of dollars and monetise news headlines in user feeds. It's really not huge money for Meta, it's really peanuts for them ($20M from recollection?). I work at a small institution that pays 1/20th of that in Oracle licensing. The money goes to various news outlets (not just News Corp - Fairfax/Nine, ABC and many smaller outlets) and helps diversify their funding.