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It 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 socia

It 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 ago
Facebook 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 ago
  The 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 ago
    I’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 ago
I'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.
deleted 3y ago
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Moldoteck 3y ago
it's not that they don't want sharing. They want $ for each share. These are different things

supriyo-biswas 3y ago

Facebook 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 ago
The 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 ago
  I’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 ago

I'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.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Moldoteck 3y ago

it's not that they don't want sharing. They want $ for each share. These are different things