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> In 2024, Google ran a set of tests of user interest in news content in Denmark and several other countries, concluding that removing such content had “no meas

by petcat 10mo ago

> In 2024, Google ran a set of tests of user interest in news content in Denmark and several other countries, concluding that removing such content had “no measurable impact” on search ad revenue. Those findings — along with the testing itself — have come under harsh criticism from Danish lawmakers. I'm not really sure what Denmark is complaining about? It sounds like Google decided that removing Danish media and news from their services would have no impact on their finances whatsoever, therefore they are firm on their negotiating position since it's basically "take it or leave it". And Denmark is also somehow trying to force Google to list and index their media, and at their price.

embedding-shape 10mo ago
Because "business" isn't just "business" in Denmark and many other countries. Journalism for example, isn't just about the financial bottom-line, journalism has a societal role, and also the move could be seen as trying to avoid paying publishers under EU rules designed to support a free press. I think a lot of friction between businesses and countries in Europe can be better understood if we better understood the difference in how countries treat things like "business" and other stuff. I understand in the US it's different, money basically rules, you can fire people whenever you want and so on, but in many places in the world, people have a different relationship to businesses, it's not just about money there. Particularly when it comes to journalism. From reading news from Denmark about it, politicians been repeatedly argued that Google's framing reduces journalism to a revenue input, ignoring its democratic function.
- petcat 10mo ago
  If journalism really weren't just about the financial bottom line in Denmark, then why are they quibbling over what Google will pay them at all? It sounds like they'll be happy with just Google listing and driving traffic to their content for free.
  - Herring 10mo ago
    You're missing the point. I speak American so I can translate. He's basically saying journalism is a matter of National Security. It needs to be done correctly to a high level at all costs, much like education. Google (Silicon Valley) is messing with it.
    - irishcoffee 10mo ago
      Hmm, they're not 'messing with' journalism or national security. They just don't care enough to index denmark journalism. I'm also not sure how denmark can strongarm google et. al. into doing anything at all. Is this incorrect, is there some sort of path forward here for denmark to get what they want?
      - anigbrowl 10mo ago
        In practice, that's a form of censorship since it inhibits the ability of people in Denmark to discover domestic news articles through search.
        polishTar 10mo ago
        But Google is willing to host their content in search, right? They're just not willing to pay since there's no revenue benefit to search hosting it. It seems like Danish media doesn't like this and has chosen to withhold their content, which is their right of course, but it seems strange to contort that into a claim that Google is doing censorship.
        irishcoffee 10mo ago
        > In practice, that's a form of censorship since it inhibits the ability of people in Denmark to discover domestic news articles through search. No it doesn't. It it inhibits the ability of people in Denmark to discover domestic news articles through GOOGLE search. A subtle but hugely distinct difference, making your point quite moot.
        anigbrowl 10mo ago
- terminalshort 10mo ago
  This does not support freedom of the press. This policy is essentially a tax on web indexers (in practice, Google) that is paid directly to the news companies. This means that they are entirely dependent on government authority for their revenue, which is the opposite of freedom of the press. On top of that, only companies that are defined as "news outlets" by the government are eligible for forced indexing and payment. So not only is the government setting itself up as the revenue source, but it gets to choose who gets the money.
  - shimman 10mo ago
    lol only on this forum can you construe the government regulating big tech as an anti freedom stance. Google, Meta, Apple, and Amazon are society destroying companies. They are Walmart times a trillion. Any country that is not directly taxing these wildly profitable companies are leaving free money on the table.
    - terminalshort 10mo ago
      You are hiding behind the word "regulating" which is meaningless by itself instead of talking about the particular regulation in question. This is a regulation that the tech companies pay money directly to a list of media companies picked by the government. It is absolutely an anti freedom stance.
      - shimman 10mo ago
        No, you're just decrying any government intervention as bad which is moronic. The only solace I can take is that a large majority of US voters despise big tech and tech workers. Go out and do some canvassing, I have across the country and the sentiment is quite clear. Whoever is the first President to decapitate a tech company will likely be put on Mount Rushmore as a hero of the people. Get out of your bubble because the upcoming change is going to give you whiplash.
        terminalshort 10mo ago
- broken-kebab 10mo ago
  In this context "journalism" usually refers not to a crowd of Mothers Teresas seeking to improve society in voluntary contradiction to their own market (or guild/class/whatever) interests, but a bunch of business entities which were born out of printed newspapers, feeling uncertain about their revenues after changes in technology of information delivery ruined their niche. And trying to leverage their established relations with politicians to extract more profit. It's not like Google is offending little pixies here. After all, there are youtube channels which have a societal role too, and search engines too I guess can make a similar claim. Other commenter's note about national security issue is more on point but then I doubt that bailing out failing news platforms would make them as influential as they used to be in the bygone era.
VWWHFSfQ 10mo ago
It sounds to me like Denmark's media and news isn't very valuable from an ad sales perspective. So Google has set their price reflecting what they think that value is: not much. And Denmark is now getting their lawmakers involved because they think it's worth a lot more and they want to force Google to buy it for a lot more. Honestly, it doesn't sound like a lot of these EU countries are interested in digital sovereignty or developing their own services. They just want to force the American companies to sell their services at rates favorable to them by getting their regulators involved.
- petcat 10mo ago
  Yeah it seems like if they were really struggling to break up then they wouldn't be trying to force Google or Meta to the negotiating table. They would be simply kicking them out and not utilizing their services at all. But it's actually the opposite. They are trying to get their lawmakers to force Google and Meta to provide them their services at below market value!
  - dybber 10mo ago
    It seems like Google and Meta are using their dominant position to take as big a part of ad revenue as they possibly can, and if that means independent news companies where actual journalism is conducted can’t survive, then they don’t really care. Danish media are trying to survive, as high quality journalism is necessary for democracy to function. They can’t avoid being on the big platforms, as Google and Meta have this dominant gatekeeper position in the market - this is where the media pull new users into their sites.
- terminalshort 10mo ago
  People who are capable of building things don't go into government. "Bureaucracy" has a connotation of where creativity and innovation goes to die for a reason. The personality type that goes into bureaucracy thinks about this like "why would I put in the effort to build something when I could just use the state monopoly on violence to shake down the suckers who already did all that hard work for me?" Of course they lie to the public, and most importantly to themselves, that they have higher motives, but that is the underlying logic.
dybber 10mo ago
The criticism was that Google have a dominant position on search market, Google selected 1% of their users to run the experiment on, but without informing them. That is users didn’t know that their search results were manipulated and articles they would otherwise have found didn’t show up. So the argument presented by Danish authorities and media companies were that information should flow freely in a democracy and by doing a huge experiment like this without informing users is against the rights of Danish citizens.
- terminalshort 10mo ago
  "Manipulated" is a loaded and meaningless term here. All results are generated by algorithm, so that means 99% see the output of algorithm A and 1% see the output of algorithm B. Neither is more "manipulated" than the other.
  - onemoresoop 10mo ago
    It is possible that neither are more manipuled tough it's impossible to tell. What seems clear from your example above is that both are manipulated, just in different ways and with google's incentive. It is understandable that countries came to the conclusion that this is posing a threat to their national security.
    - nearbuy 10mo ago
      "Manipulated" has strong negative connotations, but it could just mean that the results are chosen and controlled by the search engine. In which case, it's a meaningless statement. The entire purpose of any search engine is to choose results for queries. Or it can mean the results were altered from some ideal baseline algorithm that we consider unmanipulated. The only obvious candidate for this baseline would be the search engine's regular algorithm. But if you're saying that's not the baseline, then it's unclear what you consider to be the true baseline and therefore unclear what "manipulated" means. I agree that countries may consider search engines, social media, or anything else that can affect flow of information to be a national security threat.
    - 10mo ago

by petcat 10mo ago

embedding-shape 10mo ago

Because "business" isn't just "business" in Denmark and many other countries. Journalism for example, isn't just about the financial bottom-line, journalism has a societal role, and also the move could be seen as trying to avoid paying publishers under EU rules designed to support a free press. I think a lot of friction between businesses and countries in Europe can be better understood if we better understood the difference in how countries treat things like "business" and other stuff. I understand in the US it's different, money basically rules, you can fire people whenever you want and so on, but in many places in the world, people have a different relationship to businesses, it's not just about money there. Particularly when it comes to journalism. From reading news from Denmark about it, politicians been repeatedly argued that Google's framing reduces journalism to a revenue input, ignoring its democratic function.

petcat 10mo ago
If journalism really weren't just about the financial bottom line in Denmark, then why are they quibbling over what Google will pay them at all? It sounds like they'll be happy with just Google listing and driving traffic to their content for free.
- Herring 10mo ago
  You're missing the point. I speak American so I can translate. He's basically saying journalism is a matter of National Security. It needs to be done correctly to a high level at all costs, much like education. Google (Silicon Valley) is messing with it.
  - irishcoffee 10mo ago
    Hmm, they're not 'messing with' journalism or national security. They just don't care enough to index denmark journalism. I'm also not sure how denmark can strongarm google et. al. into doing anything at all. Is this incorrect, is there some sort of path forward here for denmark to get what they want?
    - anigbrowl 10mo ago
      In practice, that's a form of censorship since it inhibits the ability of people in Denmark to discover domestic news articles through search.
      - polishTar 10mo ago
        But Google is willing to host their content in search, right? They're just not willing to pay since there's no revenue benefit to search hosting it. It seems like Danish media doesn't like this and has chosen to withhold their content, which is their right of course, but it seems strange to contort that into a claim that Google is doing censorship.
      - irishcoffee 10mo ago
        > In practice, that's a form of censorship since it inhibits the ability of people in Denmark to discover domestic news articles through search. No it doesn't. It it inhibits the ability of people in Denmark to discover domestic news articles through GOOGLE search. A subtle but hugely distinct difference, making your point quite moot.
        anigbrowl 10mo ago
terminalshort 10mo ago
This does not support freedom of the press. This policy is essentially a tax on web indexers (in practice, Google) that is paid directly to the news companies. This means that they are entirely dependent on government authority for their revenue, which is the opposite of freedom of the press. On top of that, only companies that are defined as "news outlets" by the government are eligible for forced indexing and payment. So not only is the government setting itself up as the revenue source, but it gets to choose who gets the money.
- shimman 10mo ago
  lol only on this forum can you construe the government regulating big tech as an anti freedom stance. Google, Meta, Apple, and Amazon are society destroying companies. They are Walmart times a trillion. Any country that is not directly taxing these wildly profitable companies are leaving free money on the table.
  - terminalshort 10mo ago
    You are hiding behind the word "regulating" which is meaningless by itself instead of talking about the particular regulation in question. This is a regulation that the tech companies pay money directly to a list of media companies picked by the government. It is absolutely an anti freedom stance.
    - shimman 10mo ago
      No, you're just decrying any government intervention as bad which is moronic. The only solace I can take is that a large majority of US voters despise big tech and tech workers. Go out and do some canvassing, I have across the country and the sentiment is quite clear. Whoever is the first President to decapitate a tech company will likely be put on Mount Rushmore as a hero of the people. Get out of your bubble because the upcoming change is going to give you whiplash.
      - terminalshort 10mo ago
broken-kebab 10mo ago
In this context "journalism" usually refers not to a crowd of Mothers Teresas seeking to improve society in voluntary contradiction to their own market (or guild/class/whatever) interests, but a bunch of business entities which were born out of printed newspapers, feeling uncertain about their revenues after changes in technology of information delivery ruined their niche. And trying to leverage their established relations with politicians to extract more profit. It's not like Google is offending little pixies here. After all, there are youtube channels which have a societal role too, and search engines too I guess can make a similar claim. Other commenter's note about national security issue is more on point but then I doubt that bailing out failing news platforms would make them as influential as they used to be in the bygone era.

VWWHFSfQ 10mo ago

It sounds to me like Denmark's media and news isn't very valuable from an ad sales perspective. So Google has set their price reflecting what they think that value is: not much. And Denmark is now getting their lawmakers involved because they think it's worth a lot more and they want to force Google to buy it for a lot more. Honestly, it doesn't sound like a lot of these EU countries are interested in digital sovereignty or developing their own services. They just want to force the American companies to sell their services at rates favorable to them by getting their regulators involved.

petcat 10mo ago
Yeah it seems like if they were really struggling to break up then they wouldn't be trying to force Google or Meta to the negotiating table. They would be simply kicking them out and not utilizing their services at all. But it's actually the opposite. They are trying to get their lawmakers to force Google and Meta to provide them their services at below market value!
- dybber 10mo ago
  It seems like Google and Meta are using their dominant position to take as big a part of ad revenue as they possibly can, and if that means independent news companies where actual journalism is conducted can’t survive, then they don’t really care. Danish media are trying to survive, as high quality journalism is necessary for democracy to function. They can’t avoid being on the big platforms, as Google and Meta have this dominant gatekeeper position in the market - this is where the media pull new users into their sites.
terminalshort 10mo ago
People who are capable of building things don't go into government. "Bureaucracy" has a connotation of where creativity and innovation goes to die for a reason. The personality type that goes into bureaucracy thinks about this like "why would I put in the effort to build something when I could just use the state monopoly on violence to shake down the suckers who already did all that hard work for me?" Of course they lie to the public, and most importantly to themselves, that they have higher motives, but that is the underlying logic.

dybber 10mo ago

The criticism was that Google have a dominant position on search market, Google selected 1% of their users to run the experiment on, but without informing them. That is users didn’t know that their search results were manipulated and articles they would otherwise have found didn’t show up. So the argument presented by Danish authorities and media companies were that information should flow freely in a democracy and by doing a huge experiment like this without informing users is against the rights of Danish citizens.

terminalshort 10mo ago
"Manipulated" is a loaded and meaningless term here. All results are generated by algorithm, so that means 99% see the output of algorithm A and 1% see the output of algorithm B. Neither is more "manipulated" than the other.
- onemoresoop 10mo ago
  It is possible that neither are more manipuled tough it's impossible to tell. What seems clear from your example above is that both are manipulated, just in different ways and with google's incentive. It is understandable that countries came to the conclusion that this is posing a threat to their national security.
  - nearbuy 10mo ago
    "Manipulated" has strong negative connotations, but it could just mean that the results are chosen and controlled by the search engine. In which case, it's a meaningless statement. The entire purpose of any search engine is to choose results for queries. Or it can mean the results were altered from some ideal baseline algorithm that we consider unmanipulated. The only obvious candidate for this baseline would be the search engine's regular algorithm. But if you're saying that's not the baseline, then it's unclear what you consider to be the true baseline and therefore unclear what "manipulated" means. I agree that countries may consider search engines, social media, or anything else that can affect flow of information to be a national security threat.
  - 10mo ago