Facebook bans sharing of news in Australia – starting now – rather than submit to pay-for-news-plan
- Reference: 1613604132
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/02/17/facebook_australian_news/
- Source link:
That plan, embodied in the [1]News Media Bargaining Code , passed the lower house of Australia’s parliament yesterday. Passage through the Senate and into law is all-but-assured.
[2]
The Code has been praised by none other than Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which overnight [3]announced “an historic multi-year partnership with Google to provide trusted journalism from its news sites around the world in return for significant payments by Google.”
News Corp’s deal will see content pass beyond the paywalls of The Wall Street Journal , Barron’s , MarketWatch , the New York Post , The Times , The Sun , and Murdoch’s flagship antipodean broadsheet The Australian , and into Google’s News app and Discovery service.
[4]
The company's announcement thanks Australia’s regulators and politicians for pursuing a law that News clearly thinks brought Google to the table.
“I would like to thank Sundar Pichai and his team at Google who have shown a thoughtful commitment to journalism that will resonate in every country,” said News CEO Robert Thomson.
Zuck on the other hand...
Facebook [5]explained its decision by saying Australia’s plan “fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content.”
“This legislation sets a precedent where the government decides who enters into these news content agreements, and ultimately, how much the party that already receives value from the free service gets paid,” wrote Will Easton, The Social Network™’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand.
Microsoft tells Biden administration to adopt Australia’s pay-for-news plan [6]READ MORE
“It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter.”
Perhaps not that heavy, however, because Easton’s post says news makes up “less than four per cent” of the stuff Facebook users see in their feeds.
Facebook’s ban also looks to have workarounds.
Your correspondent attempted to post an item from the sport section of my hometown’s quality daily, The Sydney Morning Herald . Facebook produced this result:
[7]
Australian Facebook users see this
when they try to post local news. Click to enlarge
The story in question concerns a footballer in Australia’s National Rugby League who has been very naughty. When your humble hack posted a story on the same player and the same indiscretions from nrl.com, the League’s own webpage-cum-news service, it sailed through onto Facebook.
Australians who want to share news will just need to figure out which sites Facebook forbids and which it permits.
Which may be the point of Facebook’s actions, as Easton says publishers derive over AU$400m (US$310m) of value from links shared on the network. The Social Network™ will be showing them what they're missing every day.
Facebook’s ban also extends to publishers beyond Australia, who can share their stuff on Facebook but won’t see their links appear in the land down under. The Register ’s tests of that aspect of the ban saw stories from The New Yorker , Singapore’s Straits Times and The Times of India blocked, but a New York Times page allowed.
Banned publishers' Facebook pages remain, but without any posts. The ban has, ironically, seen Facebook's own news page banned, along those of sites that publish satirical news.
Analysis: A strange success
When the News Media Bargaining Code becomes law next week, it will probably be redundant because it is invoked when the nation’s Treasurer names a web company as required to negotiate payments with Australian news publishers.
By excluding Australian news from its platform, Facebook presumably believes it can’t be forced to the negotiating table.
Publishers don’t need talks with Google now that they’ve struck direct deals with the company. Australia’s government has therefore stared down Google and won. Ministers can rightly claim to have extracted concessions from Google that it previously did not cede.
The government also wins because the News Corp/Google deal means more Australians will be able to freely access content that accords with the government’s centre-right position and seldom fails to be critical of Australia’s centre-left opposition. That’s a win for the government’s messaging.
But it is also likely to strengthen News Corp’s influence. And as Australia’s dominant news publisher, News Corp already has plenty of influence already.
But it’s far from certain the government’s policy goal of funding more public interest journalism will come about. While Google's deal means more content of all stripes will emerge from behind paywalls, there’s no mechanism to force publishers to spend Google's money on anything in particular. Local publishers have already been non-committal about how they’ll use the money. And the deals won’t stop Google and Facebook continuing to dominate the market for online advertising in ways that continue to hurt publishers.
That Facebook has chosen to walk away also reduces the chances of improved funding for public interest journalism, both by ensuring no Zuck-bucks reach Australian publishers and because little or no news produced in rigorous newsrooms will now reaches Australia’s 14-million daily Facebook users.
And those users, like Facebook users everywhere, don’t find it hard to encounter outrageous or misleading content.
Ironically, Facebook Australia last week suspended a member of parliament's posting privileges after he shared Coronavirus-related misinformation. The MP in question also shares climate change denial material and content that uses the same language as QAnon and similar conspiracy-fueled groups.
Australians will have to trust Facebook’s plan to stop that kind of stuff. Even though that plan has previously failed, again and again. ®
UPDATE: 02:30 GMT February 18th. Facebook's implementation of its ban has been revealed as ham-fisted, as Health Department websites were barred along with stories from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which as national public broadcaster has a role publishing information during emergencies. Facebook's own Facebook page was blocked by Facebook.
Australia's opposition leader was quick to sink a boot into both Facebook and the government for the errors, which Facebook says it is working to fix.
During a global pandemic, Australians can't access state health departments on Facebook. On a day of flood and fire warnings in Queensland and WA, Australians can’t access the Bureau of Meteorology on Facebook.
The Morrison Government needs to fix this today. — Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) [8]February 17, 2021
[9]
( The Register is not eligible for payments under Australia’s plan. We report this story as it is of global import.)
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/09/final_australian_news_bargaining_code/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_personal_tech/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YC30aX35p2oYMNLXFeFQGwAAAAU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://newscorp.com/2021/02/17/news-corp-and-google-agree-to-global-partnership-on-news/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_personal_tech/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YC30aX35p2oYMNLXFeFQGwAAAAU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://about.fb.com/news/2021/02/changes-to-sharing-and-viewing-news-on-facebook-in-australia/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/12/microsoft_biden_google/
[7] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/02/17/facebook_australia_block_notice.jpg
[8] https://twitter.com/AlboMP/status/1362177819304812544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_personal_tech/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YC30aX35p2oYMNLXFeFQGwAAAAU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Interesting take on this
>The benefit will be to weed out misinformation dressed as news, and for those that get their news from Facebook, this is a great improvement.
Nope, this means they can't show news snippets from the trusted Murdoch proper newspapers but can only show free bot generated fake-news content.
Re: Interesting take on this
"The benefit will be to weed out misinformation dressed as news,"
I'm not sure that it will do that. What it will do is make it impossible to link to a reputable news site to counter the misinformation.
I don't approve of Facebook or Zuckerberg much, but I can see their point here to be honest. The ability to link freely is what makes the web the web, and making companies pay to host for links seems wrong to me.
I don't even understand the complaint to be quite honest. If I do a Google search for 'news' then click the 'News' tab, I get a two sentences from the article and a thumbnail picture. If I want to read the rest of the article, I have to click through to the originating website.
Is the argument that if I was on the originating website to start with, they'd be getting ad revenue? Whereas if I can see from the first two sentences that the article is not interesting I don't go to the site at all so no ad revenue for them?
Re: Interesting take on this
On the one hand, anything that makes FB less attractive can only be a good thing.
On the other hand, Australian politicians' inability to understand the difference between a link and a copy of a web page is very disturbing. I'm sure they understand the difference between a citation and a photocopy of a paper document.
The Chinese and Koreans would be proud
Censorship. Dangerous when gvmt and it's media buddies control the news, very dangerous
Re: The Chinese and Koreans would be proud
Welcome to the UK (including Scotland).
Well done Facebook
I don't use Facebook (much) and certainly not for news feeds so I applaud Facebook for standing up to the Australian Government and the ACCC.
Any law that is specifically directed to only two entities (Facebook and Google) and does not apply to those entities business or social competitors (notably Bing) is a terrible abuse of Law-making power. To add to that a definition of news so wide that any snippet of information can be classed as news information of interest to Australians is sheer abuse of power and process.
This is the definition of 'news' in the offending Australian Act ;
"news source means any of the following, if it produces, and publishes online, news content:
a newspaper masthead;
a magazine;
a television program or channel;
a radio program or channel;
a website or part of a website;
a program of audio or video content designed to be distributed over the internet.
core news content means content that reports, investigates or explains
issues or events that are relevant in engaging Australians in public debate and in informing democratic decision-making; or
current issues or events of public significance for Australians at a local, regional or national level"
So even a personal website is caught up in the mess.
Interesting
FBs bullying hasn’t stopped there. Blocking legit weather and Health department run sites. I noticed they were not game enough to block the AFP and Queensland Police.
This should be fun to watch. Where is the popcorn?
Re: Interesting
They will randomly block pages (with script minus Police, lol) until public gets angry and the pollies will budge.
Couldn't even share this article
What does it say when FB blocks ALL news from being posted? I see some here who praise FBs move, but do you realise that even tech news sites like The Reg are being blocked? I tried to share this article on FB and was told "Something went wrong, and we're trying to fix it." BS They've blocked those of us Down Under from sharing any and all news.
Re: Couldn't even share this article
"They've blocked those of us Down Under from sharing any and all news."
Because the ACCC/Government have a very broad definition of what is "News" - It's not FB's fault they are trying to comply with what is a very badly written definition of "news" and also what is a "news source".
Re: Couldn't even share this article
You can't share this news article, however, if you tweet it and then share the tweet, that works...
It took a while but now it's finally happened
A planetary mega-corp head-on collision with a democratic government of a large country. The outcome doesn't look good for the AU government.
Re: It took a while but now it's finally happened
You might be surprised... [1]https://www.betootaadvocate.com/headlines/facebook-changes-see-government-accountability-limited-to-1-hour-a-night-on-free-to-air-abc-tv/
[1] https://www.betootaadvocate.com/headlines/facebook-changes-see-government-accountability-limited-to-1-hour-a-night-on-free-to-air-abc-tv/
What is the Fuss ?
Facepalm is NOT the internet.
All the warnings/sites that each-way Albo is screaming about can still be accessed - all you need to do is add the appropriate App to your phone (NSW has Fires near me) OR enter the name of the organisation into this new fangled thing called a search engine in a browser, and you will get even more information.
Zuk give up any of his ill-gotten billions "earned" by selling out PEOPLE?
Heck no.
He's probably trying to find a way to charge the Australian media for "advertising their stories." :(
Interesting take on this
As a UK and Australian citizen, I welcome this.
The sooner it comes to the UK the better.
The benefit will be to weed out misinformation dressed as news, and for those that get their news from Facebook, this is a great improvement.
If you get your news from facebook, you are probably a Trump supporter / antivaxxer anyway, and being forced to hunt a bit more for news produced by an organisation that is legally responsible for the garbage they spew is at least a start.