Because they are not sharing "just a link", they are also sharing the content.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Facebook Blocks All News Sharing on Its Platforms in Australia
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Every time there has been an independent assessment of the ABC's 'partisanship' it has come out saying that the ABC has been even-handed.
The problem is that people on one side don't notice the things they agree with, but do notice, and get upset about, things they don't agree with. The same on the other side. The ABC is always getting slammed for being 'too leftist', 'too rightist', and sometimes just 'too centrist'. Poor buggers can't win.
Kind of... The news corporations are struggling and clutching at straws to gain revenue.
FB's response is "let's see who blinks first". Either the removal of links will hurt the news sites more than they think, or Facebook will find that a significant proportion of their traffic was people reading aggregated news posts, who no longer use FB. They claim that only 4% of posts are news-related, so I guess they are assuming that the potential loss of these users is worth less than setting the precedent of paying to link (not even publish) to external news stories.
Of course, the Australian market is very small, but if they bend over, they would be setting a global precedent that could cost them dearly.
I would like to see news organizations accept that "a link is not content", and allow free linking to their sites, but reach an agreement for any actual published content that ends up on FB pages. FB could restore the ability to link to external news sites in a separate window/tab so that no-one can complain there are losing ad revenue.
What content does FB show? Is it a preview generated from a link, a summary, or a full article?
How are people sharing it? Copy and paste of the contnet from one post into news posts? Just the URL, or the content itself?
Or are people doing a copy and paste of text/images from an external site into a FB post? It's hard to regulate that unless you scan for copyright content in every post (similar to YouTube scanning for copyrighted music in uploaded videos).
How much? Enough for people to say "it's good enough" and not go to the original site to read the full article?
I've (obviously) never used FB in this way at all. And I'm in Australia, so I can't now test it myself
Just some more background on this.
Facebook is not just blocking commercial news sites.
They are blocking Emergency Information sites, COVID information sites, Health Department information sites, some University sites and a number of small businesses.
They are NOT blocking Anti-vaxxer sites and other conspiracy news sites. If FB gets it way, it will not feed any real news, and FB users will only get conspiracy and other fake news.
They are being Absolute B@st@rds about this.
The problem for Facebook is that Australia is in negotiation with India regarding controlling FB (suddenly the potential audience has gone from 30 million to 1 anna bit Billion), and will be bringing the whole kerfuffle up with the G7 in Ireland later this year.
Google, after flapping its hands in the air a bit, has started doing deals with various news outlets, to everybody's satisfaction. Part of this was the sudden surge in coverage that Bing and Duckduckgo were getting in the mainstream media (TV, online and print).
Basically, Australians don't really like our government, but it is OUR government, and if you try to bully it, we will kick you in your digital goolies until you roll over and give up.
Facebook is not just blocking commercial news sites.
They are blocking Emergency Information sites, COVID information sites, Health Department information sites, some University sites and a number of small businesses.
They are NOT blocking Anti-vaxxer sites and other conspiracy news sites. If FB gets it way, it will not feed any real news, and FB users will only get conspiracy and other fake news.
They are being Absolute B@st@rds about this.
The problem for Facebook is that Australia is in negotiation with India regarding controlling FB (suddenly the potential audience has gone from 30 million to 1 anna bit Billion), and will be bringing the whole kerfuffle up with the G7 in Ireland later this year.
Google, after flapping its hands in the air a bit, has started doing deals with various news outlets, to everybody's satisfaction. Part of this was the sudden surge in coverage that Bing and Duckduckgo were getting in the mainstream media (TV, online and print).
Basically, Australians don't really like our government, but it is OUR government, and if you try to bully it, we will kick you in your digital goolies until you roll over and give up.
One would think, however, under the proposed legislation, even returning links requires payment to the media organization.
That is not what is happening here (at least not for Facebook). This is just about links.
That is what the legislation requires and is simply a money grab. Further, to prevent people from just posting links to non-Australian sites in response, the law prevents that as well.
This is a direct response to how the law works. They would be required to pay even for links to the other sites. They decided it was not worth it.
No, they would have to pay for those as well. In fact, they cannot even allow international news links.
They are blocking any site that meets the law’s definition.
Any site that has paid people generating non-narrative content.
Those sites do not have paid staff, they are just user generated content and not covered by the law.
Facebook is complying with the law as written. How can you be against that?
What is your issue? If you support they law, why are you upset that they are complying with it?
What problem? Facebook says less than 4% of their content is covered by this. It should have no meaningful impact on them if they are correct. If the news companies are correct, this should increase their revenue and everyone should be happy.
Google made a deal that is not in line with the law, and we will see how it works out for them. They had a more serious issue, as the law covers any page returning links, so it really would have meant they had to withdraw from the market completely.
Or you will discover that your 25 million potential customers do not generate enough revenue to make it worth staying in your country. I guess we will see who wins and who loses with this one.
Last edited:
Given that the law has not yet been passed, much of the above comment is moot.
Consequently, given that FB has pre-emptively blocked important Government information sites, just to put pressure on that government, my comment in bold still stands.
FB's worry is that Australia will start an international trend that will
- require them to pay money that they don't currently pay, and
- put limits on the sorts of things they can do.
Then someone needs to inform the Aussie Govt and media corps how the Internet works, and what the definition of "content" is.
If it really is as simple as asking FB & Google to pay for links (without content), then surely any media corporation would be shooting itself in the foot by forcing the removal of links to their own revenue-generating pages. Are they that stupid, or do they think that FB (or any other web-site) would just say "no worries, mate, let me pay you for helping to grow your site....".
What would happen if any other website links to a news source (in a reference for example)? Do they have to pay too?
FB has screwed this up though by blocking sites that are nothing to do with commercial news outlets.
No, it is not moot. They believe the law will pass. They are modifying their site to comply with the law. If you think the law is reasonable, how do you have a problem with that behavior?
Facebook has modified their site to comply with the law as it stands. Your argument seems to be that the law will be great once it passes, but Facebook implementing its conditions is terrible. How are these thoughts both reasonable.
They have made it clear that they do not think that this content matters to them and so they have chosen to no longer support it, rather than pay for it. You seem to feel that not only should they be forced to pay for links to other sites (contrary to every existing principle as to how the web should would), but that they should be forced to carry this content and then be forced to pay for it. They have stated that only 4% of their content is covered by this law and therefore they feel it will not be a problem for them to drop it.
Given that the news organizations as defined under the law (those who are paid to generate non-narrative content), are convinced that Facebook is taking their revenue, this should make them happy, as Facebook is no longer taking their revenue and people can discover their content using other platforms.
Again, do you support this law or not? If you do, why do you have a problem with Facebook’s complying with it?
If you are right that this content is critical to Facebook, one would expect that they will have to cave quickly. If you are wrong, they will never need to do so. Should be pretty simple to see what happens.
They understand how it works, but that does not generate revenue for them.
They are convinced that Facebook and Google need them more than they need Facebook and Google. It may be a problem for Google, but I am not yet convinced that it will be a problem for Facebook.
Yup, that is what they expect (and basically what Google has done).
I think the law is defined based on the size of the platform, so that it only applies to Facebook and Google. Pretty much how the French have done things. Define the size to be large enough that no French companies are covered.
My understanding is it covers sites that have paid staff generating non-narrative content, so all the sites they have blocked would be covered by the law.
Then the act is clearly not fit for purpose....
It's a wonder why media corporations that signed up for the code didn't see this option coming. FB has taken a hit to its own business, but complied with the proposed law. Bit like Keyser Soze killing his own family instead of rolling over to the rival gang. Maybe we'll get some real data on how much revenue news organizations actually get through referral links.
Yes, this was more worrying and even more non-sensical than the idea of FB including links (which might have generated some kind of preview or summary). If you enter "news in <your city>" in Google you get a one-line description of the *type* of content, or a one-line headline, which is often incomplete with "..." to get you to link to the site. Someone please tell me how this could possibly affect revenue for the publisher? You either click on the link, and they get the revenue, or you're not interested, and were never going to the publisher's site in any case.
How could this even be debated in Parliament and be passed in the House of Representatives? I must be missing something vital....
Indeed.
That's a very broad specification. It covers any business that has employees that update their on-line presence - just about every business website. Can't expect any business with a web site to have to sign up to the media code, surely?
Is the code "opt-in"? If so, then why not just remove links to those pages asking for payment for linking to them. It would be easier enough to maintain a blacklist (probably already exists for extremist sites).
I am not completely clear, but I think the difference is if the website’s purpose is only conveying information (i.e. the information is the product of the site) vs. a site with information about a product with a goal of promoting the product.
I do not think it is opt in, I think that every site that qualifies is covered. They have to request payment, but the payments seem to be able to be retroactive.
That is still a lot of sites though...I can see why sites like state and federal departments and charities have been affected. I wonder if FB has an automated process for detecting this or has some maintained list of sites that qualify as "information publishers".
Then that represents a huge risk for FB - they could have thousands of claims popping up from anyone who thinks they could make a buck.
This bill needs to be scrapped or extensively re-written.
Where do you find it though? Because Google consistently returns tabloid, opinionated spew articles from the same 5-6 sources all day every day, mainly from News Corp, there’s no diverisity.
Same with search results for any consumer products, Google results are consistently dominated by Amazon and eBay.
USA and it‘s “out of control” capitalism is the thing that should be blocked and banned by every other country, they monopolise and dictate anything and everything.
That makes a lot of sense, it’s kind of like those drug related court cases where a guy sells 25grams of pot, the court systems seize all of his assets in the name of ‘proceeds of crime’ because they decide he ‘could have made 25 million dollars’ yet in fact he made $2500.
lol private markets, aka corporations lobby your Govt and dictate to them by means of paying huge donations that effectively buy terms and rules to allow them to operate in a “cannot loose system”. USA govt is like a circus of who has the most money determine what the govt allows and disallows for their own self serving agendas. The last election was won by the Democrats because they had big tech manipulate the brainless masses over the course of a few years in every attempt to discredit the other side. The BLM circus is one example after that black guy was shot by a cop. It seemed ok that those protestors could burn their communities to the ground after looting them and bashing people yet when the capitol hill event occured the involved groups were deemed terrorists, FFS that’s some twisted assaholic manipulation by the blue mafia.
Last edited by a moderator:
Probably not, but social media’s voice, regular people as you say, gave a voice to only some who sung or parroted the same song the big tech companies agree with, otherwise the others are either racist, bigots or a psychos... ironically this social media voice, has shown more than anything else how hostile, mean, nasty, disrespectful and destructive people are. Were regular people always like that or is it that social media represents the voices of only the s[-]!t headz in society?
Well if you were on the internet in the early 90’s up until about 2000 ish it was like a respectful and comfortable dinner party, until the masses of society arrived, like a horde of hostile crazed zombies gate crashing the party. It’s been a cesspool of a place (entire internet) ever since.
The percentage of Australian traffic from Facebook to news sites dropped from 21 per cent before the ban to less than 2 per cent by midday AEDT after the ban took effect. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02...ic-down-news-ban-morrison-frydenberg/13171568
Funny how the govt accused FB of being a bully, and then the prime minister dumps a thinly veiled threat that he's going to make this a discussion topic at G7 & G20
Funny how the govt accused FB of being a bully, and then the prime minister dumps a thinly veiled threat that he's going to make this a discussion topic at G7 & G20
How on earth can anyone even possibly formulate this kind of a view? The PM, the guy you liken to ‘Kimmy J’ won’t or can’t even answer a question with a straight answer, and you conclude he’s a bully?? WTF, he’s a pussycat that bends over for anyone that tells him to what to do, that ain’t any definition of a bully. How about, a US president tells him there an imminent threat from China because they, China has navy boats patroling in the sound China Sea, a long fsckin way from Australia mind you, and that the PM must buy billions of dollars worth of bombs and missiles from the USA in order to protect themselves from this threat of boats 20,000 km away, otherwise the USA will stop trade with Mr bully Aus PM. The PM quivers and his knees buckle and he buys the bomb. How now can you even think he’s a bully?
Last edited: