Facebook Threatens To Block All News Sharing On Its Platforms In Australia

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As the title says: Facebook Threatens To Block All News Sharing On Its Platforms In Australia:

I'm curious to know the thoughts of the community on this subject matter.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Good. I hope it goes well and then apply it to the site globally. It should return to its original purpose of keeping in touch with friends and family. I don’t think it can be overstated how many people abandoned the site because outrage bait and the resulting fighting about it.
 
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Good. I hope it goes well and then apply it to the site globally. It should return to its original purpose of keeping in touch with friends and family. I don’t think it can be overstated how many people abandoned the site because outrage bait and the resulting fighting about it.
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At one level, I agree with what you all have said.

However, what bothers me is the idea of an unaccountable company using its size to attempt to dictate policy to - or influence legislative policy put forward by - an elected government.

I'm European, and - perhaps therefore - I am more than partial to the idea of some sort of government regulation of - and oversight of - these tech behemoths.
 
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At one level, I agree with what you have all said.

However, what bothers me is the idea of an unaccountable company using its size to attempt to dictate policy to - or influence legislative policy put forward by - an elected government.

i'm a European, and more than partial to the idea of some sort of government regulation of - and oversight of - these tech behemoths.
Agree 100%
 

Thomas Veil

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I don’t understand. In what way is staying out of news and politics influencing anything?

I do wonder (though not necessarily think) that some regulation of social media might be required...if for no other reason than when Facebook stops allowing news (incl. fake news) it’ll just appear elsewhere.
 

Scepticalscribe

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I don’t understand. In what way is staying out of news and politics influencing anything?

I do wonder (though not necessarily think) that some regulation of social media might be required...if for no other reason than when Facebook stops allowing news (incl. fake news) it’ll just appear elsewhere.

The Australian Government has proposed - or plans to pass - legislation which will compel tech giants such as FB and Google to share some of their advertising revenue with the publications and regional news media that actually generate the news (for which the tech monsters don't pay) across their platforms.

It is not just that FB (entirely characteristically) is putting profit before freedom of speech (by denying or blocking access to professionally produced news content and denying permission to those who use the platform to share it with one another - although it is doing this), and not just that it thinks it has the right to news content without having to pay anything for it (sources, stories from news media, or reporters, copyright, or share advertising revenue - although, again it does), and not just the fact that it is attempting to bully an elected government - although it is trying to do that, too.

Rather, it is the fact that it is doing all this, while simultaneously providing a platform (citing freedom of speech) for hateful, abusive, content, disinformation, lying ads, or ads that repeat known lies, toxic political perspectives, all sort of "fake news", and downright mendacity, and enabling the activities, agendas, and presence of - without batting an eyelid or accepting so much as a soupçon of responsibility for outcomes or smidgeon of accountability for practices - of those who would seek to undermine democratic elections, institutions and systems.
 
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Alli

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The Australian Government has proposed - or plans to pass - legislation which will compel tech giants such as FB and Google to share some of their advertising revenue with the publications and regional news media that actually generate the news (for which the tech monsters don't pay) across their platforms.

That sounds entirely fair to me.
 

SuperMatt

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That sounds entirely fair to me.

John Gruber covered this quite a while ago. Once Facebook started the news thing, they tried to strong-arm news organizations to use them. They paid very little, and Facebook works hard to make sure you don’t leave their site, so if people read an article from your news site on Facebook, they weren’t browsing the rest of your site... just the one article. I think many news organizations were like “hell no” which may be why you get so many shady fake news sites on there.
 
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John Gruber covered this quite a while ago. Once Facebook started the news thing, they tried to strong-arm news organizations to use them. They paid very little, and Facebook works hard to make sure you don’t leave their site, so if people read an article from your news site on Facebook, they weren’t browsing the rest of your site... just the one article. I think many news organizations were like “hell no” which may be why you get so many shady fake news sites on there.
THe newest thing from FB is that it kept on trying to "suggest" articles for me. Unfortunately it's my sole way to keep in touch with hundreds of friends from all over the globe...But I set up my adblocker that It blocks the wall, all the ads and suggestions.
 
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Alli

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THe newest thing from FB is that it kept on trying to "suggest" articles for me. Unfortunately it's my sole way to keep in touch with hundreds of friends from all over the globe...But I set up my adblocker that It blocks the wall, all the ads and suggestions.

Tell me more! Facebook is costing me a fortune. Yes, show me more ads for products I didn’t need before seeing your ad! And if it costs too much, I’ll quickly hop over to AliExpres and find it there for less, cause now I can’t live without it. And I still have no problem buying Chinese.
 
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Tell me more! Facebook is costing me a fortune. Yes, show me more ads for products I didn’t need before seeing your ad! And if it costs too much, I’ll quickly hop over to AliExpres and find it there for less, cause now I can’t live without it. And I still have no problem buying Chinese.
Unicorn Blocker has a "cleaner" setting with which you can pick and block website elements. You apparently can't remove ads separately, I sacrificed my feed and have no regrets. BTW, since I check FoxNews's periodically, it started bombarding me with Trump campaign ads. I find it reassuring.
 
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Oculus 2 from Facebook... Pre-kids I used to be really into VR, even had the original Oculus dev kit in 2013, but hell. Who'd buy anything with a camera on that is directly linked to FB?
 
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