6 ms·

We can certainly debate whether or not its a good idea for facebook to actually pay for the content they use to attract readers (and therefore advertisers). Ho

by rhelz 3y ago

We can certainly debate whether or not its a good idea for facebook to actually pay for the content they use to attract readers (and therefore advertisers). However, the problem those laws are trying to solve are real problems, which have very real negative consequences for our society. viz, The internet has nuked all previous media business models. It is no longer profitable to print news. The only way media companies can make a profit today is to engage in either right wing (Fox, Newsmax) or left-wing (MSNBC, Rachal Maddow) commentary. Its hard to get this point across, because most people alive today don't even remember what news used to be like. Before a newspaper would publish an article, they would have extensive fact checkers rake the article over the coals, to ensure that no known falsehoods would be printed. But when the internet came, all the money newspapers used to make from classified ads went to craigslist, and all the money they made from advertising went to google and facebook. The result is that news is progressively less fact-checked, edited etc, which makes it less valuable, which makes people even less likely to pay for it... etc etc a vicious cycle which sucks money from good players and gives it to bad players. Now children in florida are dying from Measles because the media tells them that vaccines are toxic. We have the absurdity of people claiming that masks are completely ineffective at stopping an airborne illness spread by coughing. People believing that you can cut taxes and increase spending, without blowing up the deficit. Where do all these nutty ideas come from? They come from media companies who have found out that telling people what they want to hear is more profitable than what they need to hear. So what, exactly, is your proposal to fix that problem? Its gotten far worse since the advent of LLMs--misinformation can be generated on an industrial, indeed, an internet scale. How can you make money giving people bitter-tasting medicine rather than sugar candy?

xvector 3y ago
> Before a newspaper would publish an article, they would have extensive fact checkers rake the article over the coals, to ensure that no known falsehoods would be printed. What? The news media has literally started wars due to not fact checking and prioritizing profits. See the origins of "yellow journalism" and the Spanish-American war. It has always been sensational and politicized.
wkat4242 3y ago
> The only way media companies can make a profit today is to engage in either right wing (Fox, Newsmax) or left-wing (MSNBC, Rachal Maddow) commentary. This is not something new.. In Holland we've had left wing and right wing newspapers forever. And their focus was a lot more pronounced. But this was about political news. Facts were relatively untouched. > Where do all these nutty ideas come from? They come from media companies who have found out that telling people what they want to hear is more profitable than what they need to hear. This is the root cause of the problem IMO. It's not the lack of fact checkers. That's only a symptom. The problem is that news services no longer care about the truth. Because they're commercial entities too and they thrive by selling people what they want to hear. And of course engagement at all costs including inciting hatred is something they learned from Facebook and the other social media. This phenomenon is more pronounced in the US but it's making it way to Europe as well.
- rhelz 3y ago
  // The problem is that news services no longer care about the truth. // But...(using Elon Musk's 6 levels of asking "why" methodology) Why do the news services no longer care about the truth? Because they can't make money printing the truth. They can only make money by printing opinions. Why can't they make money printing the truth? Because their old business models have been nuked, and its just too expensive for them to hire those fact checkers and editors. Why do they switch to just printing opinions then?? Because if you can make money printing opinions, you don't need fact checkers anyways. Its hella cheaper to just put "people are asking...." in front of something than checking to see if that something is actually true. Why can you make money printing opinions? Because people would rather watch a mammarily- and rhetorically-blessed person who is very articulately telling them what they already believe. Why do they prefer to hear what they already believe? That way they don't have to admit that those annoying self-righteous guys might have a point.... Why don't they want to admit that somebody else might have a good point? Because nobody likes to lose an argument. *that* is the problem which Australia's laws are trying to fix....no doubt there is a better way, but I can't think of any.....can you?
  - wkat4242 3y ago
hackerlight 3y ago
Giving unconditional money to private news orgs does nothing to change the incentive structure towards polarizing rage-bait since private companies will optimize for the marginal customer. The incentives don't change and hence behavior won't change. You either need to condition that money or remove the profit motive.
- rhelz 3y ago
  Good considerations, but news organizations did used to compete on credibility when it was profitable to do so. No doubt the law could be improved, but how? How would you condition the money, specifically? Or if you remove the money, what else can be done to encourage a free market which values the truth?
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    > How would you condition the money, specifically? Or if you remove the money, what else can be done to encourage a free market which values the truth? It is hard to fight an uphill battle against incentives. Truth doesn't sell anymore if the customer base has devolved into an angry, scared, self righteous, polarized, social media addicted mess. Funding non-profits like Wikipedia and public orgs like PBS, and taxing and regulating social media, could be a start. But funding Murdoch unconditionally so he can further contribute to the problem we're trying to solve, doesn't seem like a good path forward.
    - rhelz 3y ago
      // But funding Murdoch unconditionally so he can further contribute to the problem we're trying to solve, doesn't seem like a good path forward. // What can I say? sigh you ain't wrong about that....

by rhelz 3y ago

xvector 3y ago

> Before a newspaper would publish an article, they would have extensive fact checkers rake the article over the coals, to ensure that no known falsehoods would be printed. What? The news media has literally started wars due to not fact checking and prioritizing profits. See the origins of "yellow journalism" and the Spanish-American war. It has always been sensational and politicized.

wkat4242 3y ago

> The only way media companies can make a profit today is to engage in either right wing (Fox, Newsmax) or left-wing (MSNBC, Rachal Maddow) commentary. This is not something new.. In Holland we've had left wing and right wing newspapers forever. And their focus was a lot more pronounced. But this was about political news. Facts were relatively untouched. > Where do all these nutty ideas come from? They come from media companies who have found out that telling people what they want to hear is more profitable than what they need to hear. This is the root cause of the problem IMO. It's not the lack of fact checkers. That's only a symptom. The problem is that news services no longer care about the truth. Because they're commercial entities too and they thrive by selling people what they want to hear. And of course engagement at all costs including inciting hatred is something they learned from Facebook and the other social media. This phenomenon is more pronounced in the US but it's making it way to Europe as well.

rhelz 3y ago
// The problem is that news services no longer care about the truth. // But...(using Elon Musk's 6 levels of asking "why" methodology) Why do the news services no longer care about the truth? Because they can't make money printing the truth. They can only make money by printing opinions. Why can't they make money printing the truth? Because their old business models have been nuked, and its just too expensive for them to hire those fact checkers and editors. Why do they switch to just printing opinions then?? Because if you can make money printing opinions, you don't need fact checkers anyways. Its hella cheaper to just put "people are asking...." in front of something than checking to see if that something is actually true. Why can you make money printing opinions? Because people would rather watch a mammarily- and rhetorically-blessed person who is very articulately telling them what they already believe. Why do they prefer to hear what they already believe? That way they don't have to admit that those annoying self-righteous guys might have a point.... Why don't they want to admit that somebody else might have a good point? Because nobody likes to lose an argument. *that* is the problem which Australia's laws are trying to fix....no doubt there is a better way, but I can't think of any.....can you?
- wkat4242 3y ago

hackerlight 3y ago

Giving unconditional money to private news orgs does nothing to change the incentive structure towards polarizing rage-bait since private companies will optimize for the marginal customer. The incentives don't change and hence behavior won't change. You either need to condition that money or remove the profit motive.

rhelz 3y ago
Good considerations, but news organizations did used to compete on credibility when it was profitable to do so. No doubt the law could be improved, but how? How would you condition the money, specifically? Or if you remove the money, what else can be done to encourage a free market which values the truth?
- hackerlight 3y ago
  > How would you condition the money, specifically? Or if you remove the money, what else can be done to encourage a free market which values the truth? It is hard to fight an uphill battle against incentives. Truth doesn't sell anymore if the customer base has devolved into an angry, scared, self righteous, polarized, social media addicted mess. Funding non-profits like Wikipedia and public orgs like PBS, and taxing and regulating social media, could be a start. But funding Murdoch unconditionally so he can further contribute to the problem we're trying to solve, doesn't seem like a good path forward.
  - rhelz 3y ago
    // But funding Murdoch unconditionally so he can further contribute to the problem we're trying to solve, doesn't seem like a good path forward. // What can I say? sigh you ain't wrong about that....