4 ms·

If it was just plain hyperlinks, I would agree with you. Google is scraping metadata and articles, and summarizing them so that most people never even need to

If it was just plain hyperlinks, I would agree with you. Google is scraping metadata and articles, and summarizing them so that most people never even need to click the link. Google is getting most of the value from the articles written while not doing the actual work to make them. The whole thing could have been avoided if Google and social media stopped embedding previews and summaries everywhere. It's worse in places like Facebook where they actively don't want you to actually follow the link. Facebook wants you to leave a like or a comment right there under the preview, then keep scrolling.

bawolff 3y ago
To be fair - that's what news sites do - they summarize information happening elsewhere. Its hard to claim google is in the wrong for doing to news sites what news sites have been doing to other people since forever.
- ninkendo 3y ago
  At some point someone is actually doing journalism though (in the best case at least.) News outlets that summarize things from e.g. Reuters or AP tend to have agreements which pay money for the information. You could reasonably argue that google should be doing the same, right?
  - izacus 3y ago
    Whoever is doing journalism, it's not those sites that now want a governmental tax handout to continue being bad.
    - HDThoreaun 3y ago
      It often is though. Many of these sites are employing the journalists who are uncovering the original story.
  - dmazzoni 3y ago
    I think the reality is that journalism was a ridiculously inefficient business. A big national event happens. News organizations collectively send 30 different reporters to the scene. Those 30 reporters each write up a firsthand story. Now hundreds of smaller news organizations (local papers, local TV news stations, etc.) rewrite it in their own words and put it in their version. In the end, for any major story you end up with hundreds of articles being written, but out of those there are only a handful of genuinely different narratives, each retold in slightly different words hundreds of times. It's rare that a local news organization adds any significant value. In my opinion, NPR is the only organization that gets it right: there's a single national organization that does the news at the top of every hour, and local stations then come on to give local news following that. A single national organization does morning and evening long-form news shows with the national shows, and each local station does its own long-form shows with local news. Very little redundancy.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- b112 3y ago
  If Google was doing what news sites did, it would have journalists writing articles, researching data, investigating, etc. Yet they do none of that. Your statement is absurd.
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    I kinda wonder at what point would Google enter the field by sucking AFP's feed, auto filtering it and AI generate articles. Yahoo News wasn't that, but a search engine getting into the news business would not be unprecedented.
    - afavour 3y ago
      All of this still requires actual journalism to happen at some point, though. Someone needs to conduct interviews. AI isn’t going to do that any time soon.
      - makeitdouble 3y ago
        Yes, that work would still happen under AFP or any other aggregator that deals with sourcing the news, syndicate it and manage the revenue sharing.
        b112 3y ago
        There is and was so much news outside of AFP and aggregators. Local news is a biggie, and it's hurt just as bad. Frankly, local news touches our lives far more that national news, more, and yet it is vanishing.
    - notaigenerated 3y ago
      I believe they're working on it https://www.adweek.com/media/google-paying-publishers-unreleased-gen-ai/ https://www.adweek.com/media/google-paying-publishers-unrele...
Ferret7446 3y ago
There's nothing wrong with that. Only expression is covered by copyright; re-interpretation/summarizing isn't.
- lupire 3y ago
  If your definition of "wrong" is merely "what the law currently says", California has released a patch update to your moral code.
zmmmmm 3y ago
I don't think the law (from what I read of it) actually does target that though. Might as well cite it rather than refer to it in the abstract: > The total number of the covered platform’s internet web pages displayed or presented to California residents during the month that link to, display, or present the eligible digital journalism provider’s news articles, works of journalism, or other content, or portions thereof. Google can remove all the summaries and the law will apply just as much. In fact, from my reading of it, in other parts they are actually referring to "impressions" as the driver; that is it's explicitly the click through that they are asserting provides the value to Google, not the prevention of click through. I get that emotionally, it's the prevention of click through that feels injurious, but it doesn't read as the spirit of this to me. I think possibly they know that if they didn't fully scope in links here Google would immediately just reduce it to raw links and this would reduce click through and it would hurt the intended beneficiaries of this more than it helps them.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  From the article, the overall point seems to be on Google making significantly more money from news than the news providers, and the providers trying to find a better balance one way or another. I think you're right on raw links also part of the target, but it's also in the context of Google providing an overview of the news and profiting from it, whether the links are clicked or not (Google's clearly covering all the spectrum of where money can be made on the pipeline, until it hits the target site)
hedora 3y ago
There used to be audience caps that prevented news outlets from holding a monopoly over news in any given market. Those should be brought back and applied to content moderation platforms.
Zpalmtree 3y ago
Should we be forced to have a worse user experience because the websites don't like it?
rossjudson 3y ago
I'm looking at news.google.com right now, and I am not finding any summarization being done by Google. Where are you seeing that?
habitue 3y ago
> The whole thing could have been avoided if Google and social media stopped embedding previews and summaries everywhere. This is so backwards. This is a terrible experience. Embedded summaries are great, they make everyone's life easier. If embedded summaries are killing journalism, then journalism is already dead.

bawolff 3y ago

To be fair - that's what news sites do - they summarize information happening elsewhere. Its hard to claim google is in the wrong for doing to news sites what news sites have been doing to other people since forever.

ninkendo 3y ago
At some point someone is actually doing journalism though (in the best case at least.) News outlets that summarize things from e.g. Reuters or AP tend to have agreements which pay money for the information. You could reasonably argue that google should be doing the same, right?
- izacus 3y ago
  Whoever is doing journalism, it's not those sites that now want a governmental tax handout to continue being bad.
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    It often is though. Many of these sites are employing the journalists who are uncovering the original story.
- dmazzoni 3y ago
  I think the reality is that journalism was a ridiculously inefficient business. A big national event happens. News organizations collectively send 30 different reporters to the scene. Those 30 reporters each write up a firsthand story. Now hundreds of smaller news organizations (local papers, local TV news stations, etc.) rewrite it in their own words and put it in their version. In the end, for any major story you end up with hundreds of articles being written, but out of those there are only a handful of genuinely different narratives, each retold in slightly different words hundreds of times. It's rare that a local news organization adds any significant value. In my opinion, NPR is the only organization that gets it right: there's a single national organization that does the news at the top of every hour, and local stations then come on to give local news following that. A single national organization does morning and evening long-form news shows with the national shows, and each local station does its own long-form shows with local news. Very little redundancy.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
b112 3y ago
If Google was doing what news sites did, it would have journalists writing articles, researching data, investigating, etc. Yet they do none of that. Your statement is absurd.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  I kinda wonder at what point would Google enter the field by sucking AFP's feed, auto filtering it and AI generate articles. Yahoo News wasn't that, but a search engine getting into the news business would not be unprecedented.
  - afavour 3y ago
    All of this still requires actual journalism to happen at some point, though. Someone needs to conduct interviews. AI isn’t going to do that any time soon.
    - makeitdouble 3y ago
      Yes, that work would still happen under AFP or any other aggregator that deals with sourcing the news, syndicate it and manage the revenue sharing.
      - b112 3y ago
        There is and was so much news outside of AFP and aggregators. Local news is a biggie, and it's hurt just as bad. Frankly, local news touches our lives far more that national news, more, and yet it is vanishing.
  - notaigenerated 3y ago
    I believe they're working on it https://www.adweek.com/media/google-paying-publishers-unreleased-gen-ai/ https://www.adweek.com/media/google-paying-publishers-unrele...

Ferret7446 3y ago

There's nothing wrong with that. Only expression is covered by copyright; re-interpretation/summarizing isn't.

lupire 3y ago
If your definition of "wrong" is merely "what the law currently says", California has released a patch update to your moral code.

zmmmmm 3y ago

I don't think the law (from what I read of it) actually does target that though. Might as well cite it rather than refer to it in the abstract: > The total number of the covered platform’s internet web pages displayed or presented to California residents during the month that link to, display, or present the eligible digital journalism provider’s news articles, works of journalism, or other content, or portions thereof. Google can remove all the summaries and the law will apply just as much. In fact, from my reading of it, in other parts they are actually referring to "impressions" as the driver; that is it's explicitly the click through that they are asserting provides the value to Google, not the prevention of click through. I get that emotionally, it's the prevention of click through that feels injurious, but it doesn't read as the spirit of this to me. I think possibly they know that if they didn't fully scope in links here Google would immediately just reduce it to raw links and this would reduce click through and it would hurt the intended beneficiaries of this more than it helps them.

makeitdouble 3y ago
From the article, the overall point seems to be on Google making significantly more money from news than the news providers, and the providers trying to find a better balance one way or another. I think you're right on raw links also part of the target, but it's also in the context of Google providing an overview of the news and profiting from it, whether the links are clicked or not (Google's clearly covering all the spectrum of where money can be made on the pipeline, until it hits the target site)

hedora 3y ago

There used to be audience caps that prevented news outlets from holding a monopoly over news in any given market. Those should be brought back and applied to content moderation platforms.

Zpalmtree 3y ago

Should we be forced to have a worse user experience because the websites don't like it?

rossjudson 3y ago

I'm looking at news.google.com right now, and I am not finding any summarization being done by Google. Where are you seeing that?

habitue 3y ago

> The whole thing could have been avoided if Google and social media stopped embedding previews and summaries everywhere. This is so backwards. This is a terrible experience. Embedded summaries are great, they make everyone's life easier. If embedded summaries are killing journalism, then journalism is already dead.