[Merged] Facebook removes news in Aus /Google threatens to remove search engine from Australia - Page 6

lomiller · 22nd February 2021, 09:44 AM

Originally Posted by PhantomWolf

Yeah, this isn't quite true and so is one of the other issues I have with the whole thing. ISF would not be affected by this law... unless the Australian Government decided to declare that ISF was a responsible digital platform.

I was being somewhat tongue in cheek. I very much doubt anyone is going after ISF any time soon. My goal was to highlight exactly what activity this law is targeting, and that it is in fact standard behavior that makes up the core of how the internet works, just as Google has indicated.

Originally Posted by PhantomWolf

And the thing is that there is nothing in the code that defines how they do that, it's simply left up to the Minister's discretion, and there is no appeal to that process. They declare you are an RDP and you now have to abide by their code and negotiate payment with Australia's RNOs for how much you are going to pay them each time someone posts a link to an article, along with all the other stuff that RDPs have to do under the Code. Your only other choices are to ban links to RNOs and/or to totally ban Australians.

We know what the real criteria is and motivation is. It has nothing to do with Google or Facebook harming these companies because they benefit enormously from the service they receive. It has nothing to do with the behavior being harmful to consumers, because it's a service that benefits them as well. It's not even about raising tax revenue from business conducted within Australia to pay for domestic programs. They are targeting profitable foreign companies to raid their profits and sign the money over to politically powerful domestic companies.

lomiller · 22nd February 2021, 09:58 AM

Originally Posted by Darat

Governments need to enact legislation to deal with these powerful international companies.

Why? What activity are you trying to discourage?

When operating as intended, search engines, etc are a service that benefits everyone. They benefit the media sites by sending the, traffic interested in their content and they benefit consumers by helping them find what they are looking for.

Yes, if they cross certain lines it can be a problem and some things do need to be regulated, but what specific need do these regulations address?

Originally Posted by Darat

It’s akin to the EU wide decisions against MS and the like.

The EU decision against MS was targeting specific business practices that undermined competitive markets. What similarities do you see in these Australian laws?

lomiller · 22nd February 2021, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by Darat

Should a country not be able to enforce its own laws if the company breaking its laws is an international company?

Again using ISF as an example:

Should China be able to enforce it's laws regarding what you can and can't say about Tibet on a site like ISF operating outside Chinese borders?

Darat · 22nd February 2021, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by lomiller

Why? What activity are you trying to discourage?

When operating as intended, search engines, etc are a service that benefits everyone. They benefit the media sites by sending the, traffic interested in their content and they benefit consumers by helping them find what they are looking for.

Yes, if they cross certain lines it can be a problem and some things do need to be regulated, but what specific need do these regulations address?

The EU decision against MS was targeting specific business practices that undermined competitive markets. What similarities do you see in these Australian laws?

….

(Again this doesn’t apply to the current Australia v Facebook stare-off as Facebook is ensuring it is following the Australian laws - Australia not liking the consequences of its own laws is its problem.)
_____ ….

Darat · 22nd February 2021, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by lomiller

Again using ISF as an example:

Should China be able to enforce it's laws regarding what you can and can't say about Tibet on a site like ISF operating outside Chinese borders?

In case I wasn’t very clear - I am talking about a country taking action for the laws it has within its borders.

smartcooky · 22nd February 2021, 10:53 AM

Originally Posted by Darat

Should a country not be able to enforce its own laws if the company breaking its laws is an international company?

Maybe they should, but Facebook isn't breaking any current Australian laws, and if Australia does pass that Law, then continuing to ban links to Aussie news sites will ensure they continue to not break that Law. If that happens, there will only be one loser, and it won't be Facebook

Please note how the rest of the world enforces copyright laws in China

Darat · 22nd February 2021, 05:33 PM

Originally Posted by smartcooky

Maybe they should, but Facebook isn't breaking any current Australian laws, and if Australia does pass that Law, then continuing to ban links to Aussie news sites will ensure they continue to not break that Law. If that happens, there will only be one loser, and it won't be Facebook

Please note how the rest of the world enforces copyright laws in China

….

Originally Posted by Darat

….

(Again this doesn’t apply to the current Australia v Facebook stare-off as Facebook is ensuring it is following the Australian laws - Australia not liking the consequences of its own laws is its problem.)
_____ ….

arthwollipot · 22nd February 2021, 06:01 PM

Originally Posted by smartcooky

At the moment. the Aussie media giants are losing out while Facebook is losing nothing, they can keep this up as long as they like with no impact on their bottom line - and I hope they do.

I'm okay with that.

Roboramma · 23rd February 2021, 02:57 AM

Originally Posted by GlennB

Really? You've never looked for a date, a number, a capital city, a year of birth/death or thousands of other things that are immediately answered by the short summary?

That's a good point. Yes I have looked for those sorts of things and in some cases the result was obvious in the preview text and I didn't click on the link in those cases. Often that sort of question is answered by google without even supplying a link (like for instance I want to convert miles to kilometers, I enter it into google and the first result is a little calculator supplied by google).

Roboramma · 23rd February 2021, 03:00 AM

Originally Posted by Sideroxylon

Yes, then complete song lyrics, band members, cast members, list - say all movies of 1984, famous physicists etc all without learning Google and seeing someone else’s advertising.

ETA: thinking more about it, I can also see short instruction lists for problems I am searching. So many times you need not leave the Google world.

Weird. While it's true that there are some situations where I don't have to click on any link, they're pretty rare. Maybe I'm not using google as much as you guys are though.

rjh01 · 23rd February 2021, 03:04 AM

Originally Posted by GlennB

Really? You've never looked for a date, a number, a capital city, a year of birth/death or thousands of other things that are immediately answered by the short summary?

Originally Posted by Darat

Definitely for me a lot of my searches do only result in my needing the google results page.

Originally Posted by Roboramma

That's a good point. Yes I have looked for those sorts of things and in some cases the result was obvious in the preview text and I didn't click on the link in those cases. Often that sort of question is answered by google without even supplying a link (like for instance I want to convert miles to kilometers, I enter it into google and the first result is a little calculator supplied by google).

How many of these cases have data from news websites? That is one who will benefit from the changes? I suggest none. This means that these posts are irrelevant. The changes to the law are only for news websites.

psionl0 · 23rd February 2021, 05:06 AM

Facebook is now reportedly making deals with the media organizations in the wake of promised changes to government legislation.

Quote:

Facebook will walk back its block on Australian users sharing news on its site after the government agreed to make amendments to the proposed media bargaining laws that would force major tech giants to pay news outlets for their content.

It follows days of negotiations between the government and the social media company, including discussions between Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg.

Quote:

The amendments to the code include a range of changes, including that final offer arbitration — something both Google and Facebook were strongly opposed to — is considered "a last resort where commercial deals cannot be reached by requiring mediation, in good faith, to occur prior to arbitration for no longer than two months".

Quote:

The Treasurer will also have to give advance notice to a platform if it is going to be "designated" or included under the code, and also has to take into account any deals the company has done.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-...-code/13173984

Darat · 23rd February 2021, 06:45 AM

Aussie government blinks first!

lomiller · 23rd February 2021, 09:13 AM

Originally Posted by Roboramma

Weird. While it's true that there are some situations where I don't have to click on any link, they're pretty rare. Maybe I'm not using google as much as you guys are though.

I've seen many cases where the snippet is misleading, plus I like to get an idea of where the information is really coming from so I can judge it's reliability. This means I almost always follow the links even when it seems like the information I was looking for search results.

plague311 · 23rd February 2021, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by Darat

Aussie government blinks first!

I don't think too many people are surprised by that. I would assume the public pressure would be enough to get them to ease up a bit.

arthwollipot · 23rd February 2021, 05:31 PM

Yeah, have you seen the details of the last-minute changes to the legislation?

Quote:

Late on Tuesday, the government announced changes to the news media bargaining code in response to concerns from Facebook about the operation of the code.

Under the amendments, the government will not make the code apply to a digital platform if the platform can demonstrate that it has made “a significant contribution to the sustainability of the Australian news industry” through deals made with news media companies.

This is ultimately a decision of the minister.

Labor, the Greens, and independent senator Rex Patrick are now concerned this means that larger media outlets will get deals, while smaller outlets will fall through the cracks, because they won’t have the ability to lobby the prime minister or anyone in government on whether they have been able to get a deal with Facebook.

“The minister won’t designate because the deals will have been done with the big guys, and the little guys are going to miss out and the regional guys are going to miss out,” Patrick said.

source

This means yay for Murdoch, boo for small community groups and local organisations.

psionl0 · 23rd February 2021, 08:53 PM

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

This means yay for Murdoch, boo for small community groups and local organisations.

Rich mates looked after again.

arthwollipot · 23rd February 2021, 09:37 PM

Originally Posted by psionl0

Rich mates looked after again.

Exactly. I am seeing reports that Facebook has provided a method for non-multimillion dollar media empires to get their pages restored, but they're sure not drawing attention to it.

22nd February 2021, 09:44 AM	#201
lomiller Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 11,462	Originally Posted by PhantomWolf Yeah, this isn't quite true and so is one of the other issues I have with the whole thing. ISF would not be affected by this law... unless the Australian Government decided to declare that ISF was a responsible digital platform. I was being somewhat tongue in cheek. I very much doubt anyone is going after ISF any time soon. My goal was to highlight exactly what activity this law is targeting, and that it is in fact standard behavior that makes up the core of how the internet works, just as Google has indicated. Originally Posted by PhantomWolf And the thing is that there is nothing in the code that defines how they do that, it's simply left up to the Minister's discretion, and there is no appeal to that process. They declare you are an RDP and you now have to abide by their code and negotiate payment with Australia's RNOs for how much you are going to pay them each time someone posts a link to an article, along with all the other stuff that RDPs have to do under the Code. Your only other choices are to ban links to RNOs and/or to totally ban Australians. We know what the real criteria is and motivation is. It has nothing to do with Google or Facebook harming these companies because they benefit enormously from the service they receive. It has nothing to do with the behavior being harmful to consumers, because it's a service that benefits them as well. It's not even about raising tax revenue from business conducted within Australia to pay for domestic programs. They are targeting profitable foreign companies to raid their profits and sign the money over to politically powerful domestic companies.
	__________________ "Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen"

22nd February 2021, 09:58 AM	#202
lomiller Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 11,462	Originally Posted by Darat Governments need to enact legislation to deal with these powerful international companies. Why? What activity are you trying to discourage? When operating as intended, search engines, etc are a service that benefits everyone. They benefit the media sites by sending the, traffic interested in their content and they benefit consumers by helping them find what they are looking for. Yes, if they cross certain lines it can be a problem and some things do need to be regulated, but what specific need do these regulations address? Originally Posted by Darat It’s akin to the EU wide decisions against MS and the like. The EU decision against MS was targeting specific business practices that undermined competitive markets. What similarities do you see in these Australian laws?
	__________________ "Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen" Last edited by lomiller; 22nd February 2021 at 10:02 AM.

22nd February 2021, 10:14 AM	#203
lomiller Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 11,462	Originally Posted by Darat Should a country not be able to enforce its own laws if the company breaking its laws is an international company? Again using ISF as an example: Should China be able to enforce it's laws regarding what you can and can't say about Tibet on a site like ISF operating outside Chinese borders?
	__________________ "Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen"

22nd February 2021, 10:48 AM	#204
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 97,697	Originally Posted by lomiller Why? What activity are you trying to discourage? When operating as intended, search engines, etc are a service that benefits everyone. They benefit the media sites by sending the, traffic interested in their content and they benefit consumers by helping them find what they are looking for. Yes, if they cross certain lines it can be a problem and some things do need to be regulated, but what specific need do these regulations address? The EU decision against MS was targeting specific business practices that undermined competitive markets. What similarities do you see in these Australian laws? …. (Again this doesn’t apply to the current Australia v Facebook stare-off as Facebook is ensuring it is following the Australian laws - Australia not liking the consequences of its own laws is its problem.) _____ ….
	__________________ I wish I knew how to quit you

22nd February 2021, 10:52 AM	#205
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 97,697	Originally Posted by lomiller Again using ISF as an example: Should China be able to enforce it's laws regarding what you can and can't say about Tibet on a site like ISF operating outside Chinese borders? In case I wasn’t very clear - I am talking about a country taking action for the laws it has within its borders.
	__________________ I wish I knew how to quit you

22nd February 2021, 10:53 AM	#206
smartcooky Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Nelson, New Zealand Posts: 17,161	Originally Posted by Darat Should a country not be able to enforce its own laws if the company breaking its laws is an international company? Maybe they should, but Facebook isn't breaking any current Australian laws, and if Australia does pass that Law, then continuing to ban links to Aussie news sites will ensure they continue to not break that Law. If that happens, there will only be one loser, and it won't be Facebook Please note how the rest of the world enforces copyright laws in China
	__________________ I want to thank the 126 Republican Congress members for providing a convenient and well organized list for the mid-terms. - Fred Wellman (Senior VA Advisor to The Lincoln Project) If you don't like my posts, my opinions, or my directness then put me on your ignore list. This will be of benefit to both of us; you won't have to take umbrage at my posts, and I won't have to waste my time talking to you... simples! ! Last edited by smartcooky; 22nd February 2021 at 11:00 AM.

22nd February 2021, 05:33 PM	#207
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 97,697	Originally Posted by smartcooky Maybe they should, but Facebook isn't breaking any current Australian laws, and if Australia does pass that Law, then continuing to ban links to Aussie news sites will ensure they continue to not break that Law. If that happens, there will only be one loser, and it won't be Facebook Please note how the rest of the world enforces copyright laws in China …. Originally Posted by Darat …. (Again this doesn’t apply to the current Australia v Facebook stare-off as Facebook is ensuring it is following the Australian laws - Australia not liking the consequences of its own laws is its problem.) _____ ….
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22nd February 2021, 06:01 PM	#208
arthwollipot Observer of Phenomena Pronouns: he/him Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Ngunnawal Country Posts: 70,919	Originally Posted by smartcooky At the moment. the Aussie media giants are losing out while Facebook is losing nothing, they can keep this up as long as they like with no impact on their bottom line - and I hope they do. I'm okay with that.
	__________________ Semantic ambiguity is how vampires get you.

23rd February 2021, 02:57 AM	#209
Roboramma Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Shanghai Posts: 14,458	Originally Posted by GlennB Really? You've never looked for a date, a number, a capital city, a year of birth/death or thousands of other things that are immediately answered by the short summary? That's a good point. Yes I have looked for those sorts of things and in some cases the result was obvious in the preview text and I didn't click on the link in those cases. Often that sort of question is answered by google without even supplying a link (like for instance I want to convert miles to kilometers, I enter it into google and the first result is a little calculator supplied by google).
	__________________ "... when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." Isaac Asimov

23rd February 2021, 03:00 AM	#210
Roboramma Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Shanghai Posts: 14,458	Originally Posted by Sideroxylon Yes, then complete song lyrics, band members, cast members, list - say all movies of 1984, famous physicists etc all without learning Google and seeing someone else’s advertising. ETA: thinking more about it, I can also see short instruction lists for problems I am searching. So many times you need not leave the Google world. Weird. While it's true that there are some situations where I don't have to click on any link, they're pretty rare. Maybe I'm not using google as much as you guys are though.
	__________________ "... when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." Isaac Asimov

23rd February 2021, 03:04 AM	#211
rjh01 Gentleman of leisure Tagger Join Date: May 2005 Location: Flying around in the sky Posts: 26,621	Originally Posted by GlennB Really? You've never looked for a date, a number, a capital city, a year of birth/death or thousands of other things that are immediately answered by the short summary? Originally Posted by Darat Definitely for me a lot of my searches do only result in my needing the google results page. Originally Posted by Roboramma That's a good point. Yes I have looked for those sorts of things and in some cases the result was obvious in the preview text and I didn't click on the link in those cases. Often that sort of question is answered by google without even supplying a link (like for instance I want to convert miles to kilometers, I enter it into google and the first result is a little calculator supplied by google). How many of these cases have data from news websites? That is one who will benefit from the changes? I suggest none. This means that these posts are irrelevant. The changes to the law are only for news websites.
	__________________ This signature is for rent.

23rd February 2021, 05:06 AM	#212
psionl0 Skeptical about skeptics Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E Posts: 17,152	Facebook is now reportedly making deals with the media organizations in the wake of promised changes to government legislation. Quote: Facebook will walk back its block on Australian users sharing news on its site after the government agreed to make amendments to the proposed media bargaining laws that would force major tech giants to pay news outlets for their content. It follows days of negotiations between the government and the social media company, including discussions between Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg. Quote: The amendments to the code include a range of changes, including that final offer arbitration — something both Google and Facebook were strongly opposed to — is considered "a last resort where commercial deals cannot be reached by requiring mediation, in good faith, to occur prior to arbitration for no longer than two months". Quote: The Treasurer will also have to give advance notice to a platform if it is going to be "designated" or included under the code, and also has to take into account any deals the company has done. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-...-code/13173984
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23rd February 2021, 06:45 AM	#213
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 97,697	Aussie government blinks first!
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23rd February 2021, 09:13 AM	#214
lomiller Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 11,462	Originally Posted by Roboramma Weird. While it's true that there are some situations where I don't have to click on any link, they're pretty rare. Maybe I'm not using google as much as you guys are though. I've seen many cases where the snippet is misleading, plus I like to get an idea of where the information is really coming from so I can judge it's reliability. This means I almost always follow the links even when it seems like the information I was looking for search results.
	__________________ "Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen"

23rd February 2021, 12:27 PM	#215
plague311 Great minds think... Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: North Dakota Posts: 8,749	Originally Posted by Darat Aussie government blinks first! I don't think too many people are surprised by that. I would assume the public pressure would be enough to get them to ease up a bit.
	__________________ "Circumcision and death threats go together like milk and cookies." - William Parcher “There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.” - Patrick Rothfuss

23rd February 2021, 05:31 PM	#216
arthwollipot Observer of Phenomena Pronouns: he/him Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Ngunnawal Country Posts: 70,919	Yeah, have you seen the details of the last-minute changes to the legislation? Quote: Late on Tuesday, the government announced changes to the news media bargaining code in response to concerns from Facebook about the operation of the code. Under the amendments, the government will not make the code apply to a digital platform if the platform can demonstrate that it has made “a significant contribution to the sustainability of the Australian news industry” through deals made with news media companies. This is ultimately a decision of the minister. Labor, the Greens, and independent senator Rex Patrick are now concerned this means that larger media outlets will get deals, while smaller outlets will fall through the cracks, because they won’t have the ability to lobby the prime minister or anyone in government on whether they have been able to get a deal with Facebook. “The minister won’t designate because the deals will have been done with the big guys, and the little guys are going to miss out and the regional guys are going to miss out,” Patrick said. source This means yay for Murdoch, boo for small community groups and local organisations.
	__________________ Semantic ambiguity is how vampires get you.

23rd February 2021, 08:53 PM	#217
psionl0 Skeptical about skeptics Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E Posts: 17,152	Originally Posted by arthwollipot This means yay for Murdoch, boo for small community groups and local organisations. Rich mates looked after again.
	__________________ "The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975

23rd February 2021, 09:37 PM	#218
arthwollipot Observer of Phenomena Pronouns: he/him Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Ngunnawal Country Posts: 70,919	Originally Posted by psionl0 Rich mates looked after again. Exactly. I am seeing reports that Facebook has provided a method for non-multimillion dollar media empires to get their pages restored, but they're sure not drawing attention to it.
	__________________ Semantic ambiguity is how vampires get you.