If anything this demonstrates Facebook has too much power and governments should be looking to regulate that power. I donât use FB as a source for news but I know people who relied on it during last yearâs bushfire emergency on the south coast and it quite possibly saved their lives. To do this in the middle of a pandemic when so much misinformation is floating around is reprehensible. Hope this is a wake up call to governments across the world.
Bingo. I think Facebook have just hurt their case pretty badly.
And theyâve also blocked Harvey Norman?
Thatâs the reason for this whole thing. The media were claiming Google took snippets of their articles and put them on a Google page without ads and all the other junk they have on their own websites.
No one will dispute that. Even I agree with that. Why should Google and Facebook pay for it though? Theyâre just sending people to the content.
This is why paywalls exist. They annoy the crap out of everyone but thatâs the way to do it. Let the visitors decide which content they want to pay for. Expecting the services that send us to that content is not the way to do it.
Edit: Also the media voluntarily publishes content on Facebook. No one made them. They do it because they benefit from it. Now they want Facebook to pay them to continue doing that. Seriously.
Statement from Nine Entertainment
It is unfortunate Facebook have taken this position and it will indeed inhibit us from sharing our quality news and information with Australians. Nobody benefits from this decision as Facebook will now be a platform for misinformation to rapidly spread without balance. This action proves again their monopoly position and unreasonable behaviour.
But todayâs statement does not mean Facebook will not have to abide by the Federal Governmentâs proposed code. Value has already been transferred and Facebook has benefited from our content for many years. We should be able to access their monopoly platform and have the right to monetise our content as a result.
We have been negotiating with Facebook in good faith and we remain willing to do a deal with them that provides a mutually beneficial outcome and ensures quality information is available to all Australians on their platform.
Statement from Junkee Media editorial director, Rob Stott
Junkee Media is disappointed by Facebookâs decision to remove news from Facebook in Australia.
This decision will mean Australians no longer have access to a vital source of public interest journalism at a time when the truth has never been more valuable. This decision will undoubtedly have an outsized effect on small and medium-sized digital publishers, which will have a significant detrimental impact on the diversity of media voices available to Australians.
We urge the federal government and Facebook to work constructively to find a solution to this issue that is workable for all parties.
And if Facebook canât adapt its business to suit Australian laws they should stop operating. Havent Facebook benefited from not paying Australian taxes?
US company. Nothing more needs to be said. Australia canât force them to do anything.
If that were the case, Facebook wouldnât be worried about the bargaining code and would just ignore it. Instead theyâve gone nuclear. Not good.
Very much reminds me of tobaccoâs reaction to plain packaging. Theyâre scared because theyâve had a great deal for a long, long time, and now Australia could be the first of many countries to implement such a code.
Because billions of people go to Facebook for news every day. And billions of people spend time on Google searching for news. That means billions of $ for the tech giants.
Even the tech giants know they should pay for it (well, Google) thatâs why they just have
My main concern over all of this is that for outlets like ABC news, the communication of important emergency information has now been impacted which essentially could cost lives.
I think itâs a bit of a tanty from FB to be honest.
Would be interested to see how the users of FB react, I only use it for that reason to read articles. Aside from that I couldnât care about FB.
This. Iâm not defending Facebook because I care about them. I would love to get rid of Facebook but everyone is on it and since I live in another country it is the easiest way for me to keep in touch with my family. Otherwise I wouldnât give a crap about Facebook.
Telling a company based in another country to pay for the privilege of having the Australian media on there is just ridiculous.
I suspect Facebook have gone the scorched earth approach and will walk it back
Iâm interested in understanding when Frydenberg spoke to Zuckerberg - was it before or after the Facebook announcement
Using a VPN doesnât get around the blocks.
Hold on. So because these companies built the infrastructure to centrally index and show everything they should now pay for it?
What next? All websites have to pay Google and the other search engines to be listed?
Edit: More accurately, Google has to pay everyone to list our websites?
Do you disagree that having news content and search results on their pages does not bring value to their platforms?
That wasnât my question, but both sides benefit from Google and Facebook. It has been a mutually beneficial relationship. They both (media and Google/Facebook) get visitors and revenue as a result.
The same could be said for the Morrison governmentâs attitude.
Perhaps because Australian news providers have licensed some overseas sources content & so could demand payment?
So Nine wants back-pay? Was that in this stupid legislation that was passed?
France has already done something similar, but at least it took into account the traffic sent from Google, etc. to the publishersâ websites.
I think Morrison has gone too far. There doesnât seem to be a reasonable formula here which takes account of the two-way traffic.
Linking to a website should never require payment to that website.
Showing actual content from that site however, yes.
The question has been how much content, is the headline enough to require payment, or does that just encourage users to click through to the website.
Facebook are a trickier problem than a search engine though; their algorithm has for years now stopped people seeing posts from people/pages they follow, unless that page pays Facebook to have their content seen.
That method of monetisation is a problem; it means that media companies have had to pay Facebook to show their content not only to randoms on the platform, but to people whoâs explicitly said they want to see that publisherâs posts.
Since FB have been doing that, yes, they should pay for the double-benefit theyâve been getting from companies having to pay for the content to appear on FB.
This is true.
And google and Facebook have determined that their benefit tilts in their favour:
Google: because They are signing deals in the hundreds of millions to compensate
And FB: because they Donât want other countries to follow AUâs lead and have and Have acted accordingly
