The proposed News Media Laws

[mike]

The news media, via a Federal Government Law, want to charge for providing a link to a news site and sending traffic to the news site that benefits the news site. Having to pay for providing a link to a site that only benefits the site linked to, ridiculous. The Federal Government is off their rocker. Basically the precedent would be set that any link to any site would be changeable from the site being visited. Their goes the free and open Internet as we know it today.

This will have ramifications beyond Google and Facebook. As an ultimate expression, not yet established, is that if a forum member posts a link to a news site and its article, or posts the news article itself then the news site can charge the forum for that link or the item. Nothing in the law will specify how much the news media site can charge.

I hope Facebook and Google fight this with everything they have.

As of this morning Thursday 18/02/2021 Facebook is removing all news content from the Australian Facebook platform. Good.

 

[Cultured_Bogan]

The news media, via a Federal Government Law, want to charge for providing a link to a news site and sending traffic to the news site that benefits the news site. Having to pay for providing a link to a site that only benefits the site linked to, ridiculous. The Federal Government is off their rocker. Basically the precedent would be set that any link to any site would be changeable from the site being visited. Their goes the free and open Internet as we know it today.

This will have ramifications beyond Google and Facebook. As an ultimate expression, not yet established, is that if a forum member posts a link to a news site and its article, or posts the news article itself then the news site can charge the forum for that link or the item. Nothing in the law will specify how much the news media site can charge.

I hope Facebook and Google fight this with everything they have.

As of this morning Thursday 18/02/2021 Facebook is removing all news content from the Australian Facebook platform. Good.

Morrison has cut his nose off to spite his face. He's giving a free kick to independent news outlets like Jordan Shanks and Michael West who are either ALP leaning or at the very least happy to expose the shortcomings and tomfoolery of the government.

 

[jadtiger]

No suprises, Scamo once again showing his lack of intelligence and living in the past.

 

[Papacito]

It's a blatant attempt to give their mates at News Ltd (Uncle Rupert) and Nine/Fairfax (Peter Costello) some much needed revenue.

Together they own nearly 80% of media in Australia and have massive influence over politics.

Both have taken massive revenue hits from Netflix, online classifieds. The NBN rollout sabotage was one way the Government tried to buy them time.

The political spin has been "Google/Facebook won't bully us". A lot of smart people have swallowed it hook line and sinker.

If they were true to their neoliberal/market driven philosophy, they'd let it go.

 

[mike]

It's a blatant attempt to give their mates at News Ltd (Uncle Rupert) and Nine/Fairfax (Peter Costello) some much needed revenue.

Together they own nearly 80% of media in Australia and have massive influence over politics.

Both have taken massive revenue hits from Netflix, online classifieds. The NBN rollout sabotage was one way the Government tried to buy them time.

The political spin has been "Google/Facebook won't bully us". A lot of smart people have swallowed it hook line and sinker.

If they were true to their neoliberal/market driven philosophy, they'd let it go.

Yeah, except the revenue hit is not only from Netflix, Facebook or Google. The hit has been the loss of classified ads to sites, like eBay, Gumtree and carsales.com etc, they are the ones that really hurt.

 

[Papacito]

It's a blatant attempt to give their mates at News Ltd (Uncle Rupert) and Nine/Fairfax (Peter Costello) some much needed revenue.

Together they own nearly 80% of media in Australia and have massive influence over politics.

Both have taken massive revenue hits from Netflix, online classifieds. The NBN rollout sabotage was one way the Government tried to buy them time.

The political spin has been "Google/Facebook won't bully us". A lot of smart people have swallowed it hook line and sinker.

If they were true to their neoliberal/market driven philosophy, they'd let it go.

Yeah, except the revenue hit is not only from Netflix, Facebook or Google. The hit has been the loss of classifies to sites, like eBay, Gumtree and carsales.com etc, they are the ones that really hurt.

Correct, classifieds was the backbone of their business for years.

They're extremely vulnerable if anyone comes along with an alternative to realestate or Domain.

 

[Tim Sheens]

Regulation is one of the most important acts of governments and I think that these huge international corporations that have so much control over what we see, need to be much more accountable for both their actions and content.

That said, at the heart of this is a government acting on behalf of a group that keeps them in power and a compliant media will keep them there.

Edit; The priority for our government should be taxation on the revenues generated on our shores, whether it be Facebook, Google or Murdoch and other media, if they don't want to pay, then good riddance no matter the platform.

 

[Papacito]

Regulation is one of the most important acts of governments and I think that these huge international corporations that have so much control over what we see, need to be much more accountable for both their actions and content.

That said, at the heart of this is a government acting on behalf of a group that keeps them in power and a compliant media will keep them there.

Remember, this is the same government that set fire to long-standing media ownership regulation in 2017 and effectively allowed a duopoly in mass media.

 

[GNR4LIFE]

I think this is great. Nothing worse than scrolling Facebook, and getting flooded with hundreds of self inflated opinions and arguments in comment sections.

 

[Tim Sheens]

Regulation is one of the most important acts of governments and I think that these huge international corporations that have so much control over what we see, need to be much more accountable for both their actions and content.

That said, at the heart of this is a government acting on behalf of a group that keeps them in power and a compliant media will keep them there.

Remember, this is the same government that set fire to long-standing media ownership regulation in 2017 and effectively allowed a duopoly in mass media.

Oh yeah, and don't I know it, as their marriage acts out a dual protection racket.

 

[mike]

Regulation is one of the most important acts of governments and I think that these huge international corporations that have so much control over what we see, need to be much more accountable for both their actions and content.

That said, at the heart of this is a government acting on behalf of a group that keeps them in power and a compliant media will keep them there.

Edit; The priority for our government should be taxation on the revenues generated on our shores, whether it be Facebook, Google or Murdoch and other media, if they don't want to pay, then good riddance no matter the platform.

Tax is an entirely different story. These large corporations should absolutely be made to pay their fare share of tax. They should not be able to offset Australian revenue with overseas holdings etc.

 

[tigerbalm]

I think this is great. Nothing worse than scrolling Facebook, and getting flooded with hundreds of self inflated opinions and arguments in comment sections.

Irony.

 

[GNR4LIFE]

I think this is great. Nothing worse than scrolling Facebook, and getting flooded with hundreds of self inflated opinions and arguments in comment sections.


Irony.

This is a forum. Very different

 

[Geo]

yesssssss..no more click bait subscription articles from the Telecrap on facebook....it's a glorious day..

 

[tigerbalm]

I think this is great. Nothing worse than scrolling Facebook, and getting flooded with hundreds of self inflated opinions and arguments in comment sections.

Just messing with ya. all good.

 

[jirskyr]

I don't know, there's a lot of neg / anti-media commentary in this thread so far.

Putting aside your personal opinion on media ownership in Australia, I can understand where the government is coming from. Tech firms like Google and Facebook are themselves monopolies and at this time it's not realistic for a media outlet to avoid major online portals / distribution mechanisms to distribute their content.

Google and Facebook generate a tonne of revenue by selling ads on content created and distributed by media companies. Google and FB do nothing except provide a platform. It makes sense that both parties should enter into revenue-sharing agreements, where one group is providing the content and another is providing the platform.

It's a similar situation to Youtube, though youtube has a pre-existing arrangement with content providers. Clearly without content youtube is pointless, but without youtube (or similar) it's near impossible for fledgling content providers to distribute material.

So if Sydney Morning Herald posts content on youtube, so long as it meets the youtube guidelines (in itself a separate controversy) then they revenue share with the platform.

But at the moment, if Facebook does the same thing - permit the SMH to post articles on their FB page, FB does not have to provide a cut on the ad revenue they subsequently take.

I don't see it overall as being a bad move, and it appears to be something governments across the world are leaning towards - e.g. recent media deals along these lines in Germany and France. I'm not a legislation or media expert so I won't offer comment on the actual laws that get passed.

 

[mike]

I don't know, there's a lot of neg / anti-media commentary in this thread so far.

Putting aside your personal opinion on media ownership in Australia, I can understand where the government is coming from. Tech firms like Google and Facebook are themselves monopolies and at this time it's not realistic for a media outlet to avoid major online portals / distribution mechanisms to distribute their content.

Google and Facebook generate a tonne of revenue by selling ads on content created and distributed by media companies. Google and FB do nothing except provide a platform. It makes sense that both parties should enter into revenue-sharing agreements, where one group is providing the content and another is providing the platform.

It's a similar situation to Youtube, though youtube has a pre-existing arrangement with content providers. Clearly without content youtube is pointless, but without youtube (or similar) it's near impossible for fledgling content providers to distribute material.

So if Sydney Morning Herald posts content on youtube, so long as it meets the youtube guidelines (in itself a separate controversy) then they revenue share with the platform.

But at the moment, if Facebook does the same thing - permit the SMH to post articles on their FB page, FB does not have to provide a cut on the ad revenue they subsequently take.

I don't see it overall as being a bad move, and it appears to be something governments across the world are leaning towards - e.g. recent media deals along these lines in Germany and France. I'm not a legislation or media expert so I won't offer comment on the actual laws that get passed.

Yes Google and Facebook, as do news media, generate revenue by selling advertisements. That’s the business model. I am totally against the idea that platforms should share revenue with any company that decides to post a comment or publish a story on their platform. The media company has a choice not to do so. It is the media companies that have failed here. They have lost revenue to various sources including eBay, Gumtree carsales etc, as I have mentioned earlier and they have never figured out a way to get it back. Their paywall model simply won’t cut it any more. Because the news media have failed to come to grips with the World Wide Web and their loss of revenue to other sites, should the news media be able to siphon off profits from companies that do understand how the World Wide Web works? No.

If the news media posts a comment on a particular platform there is no way they should receive any benefit for doing so, other than the exposure they receive. The reverse, news media writing stories about Facebook or Google, certainly would not be true. News media is a protected species. It is entirely media companies’ choice to post on a platform or not, no one is making them post. Think about this for a moment. If I post something of Facebook, say a poem or short story, should I receive a share of any revenue generated? No, it’s my choice to post.

Let’s look at the overall digital transmission of information. ISP’s receive revenue based on the plan you have, usually based on how much data used. So the analogy would be they should share their revenue with news media simply because articles are transmitted via the ISP to the consumer. Because the consumer needs a plan that generates revenue for the ISPs, ISP’s should share a portion of that revenue with the News Media based on the number of articles transmitted to the consumer. It’s a ridiculous idea, just as the proposed revenue sharing idea is with Facebook and Google.

These laws are bad, very bad and I cannot stress that enough. They pave the way for charging for links and the freedom that we currently have will be gone. The fundamental principle of the World Wide Web is that linking of sites is free, these laws terminate that principle. Having to pay to host a link is the exact opposite of how the World Wide Web has worked since it’s implementation.

If this model is extrapolated to use elsewhere, there will be two versions of the World Wide Web, one for those that can afford to pay and one for those that can’t and the digital divide will be huge, apartheid like.

 

[JayT]

I just want to say its so refreshing to go on Facebook and not have troll like posts by 7 and 9 news in my feed. Like the good old days.

 

[happy_tiger]

You could all just buy a newspaper ....shock horror

 

[jirskyr]

If the news media posts a comment on a particular platform there is no way they should receive any benefit for doing so, other than the exposure they receive. The reverse, news media writing stories about Facebook or Google, certainly would not be true. News media is a protected species. It is entirely media companies’ choice to post on a platform or not, no one is making them post. Think about this for a moment. If I post something of Facebook, say a poem or short story, should I receive a share of any revenue generated? No, it’s my choice to post.

I hear what you are saying, but if you look at something like Television - you could use your same argument to say that TV channels should not have to pay for content that they show, because they are only acting as a dissemination platform. Or that a magazine could co-opt a selection of short stories taken from the internet and not pay the copyright holders.

I think there are arguments to be had in all directions and there's probably a grey area between where private users and businesses meet.

And it gets more complicated with platforms like Google and FB because they use algorithms to direct users to content. They aren't solely a distribution platform for business, they actively influence consumers via their own algorithms, to drive increased revenues.

I think it's too simply to say news media has "missed the boat" in effect, because they did't have the capacity to compete with Google. I would argue that paywalls on newspaper websites is almost entirely due to the fact that certain internet business models co-opt media content for their own purposes, with little outcome for the media.

And I think you do want the government involved in some way, because a fair, impartial, resourced, variety of media is very healthy for a country's culture. Imagine the govt did nothing and all Australian media companies were eventually ground into the dirt, and you had to rely on Google and Facebook for your news - two American companies. You might point fingers at Rupert Murdoch or Fairfax, but their revenues pale in comparison to the tech juggernauts.