The proposed News Media Laws

[mike]

Why should Facebook pay for companies to post articles on the platform. they are not the ones posting them on there. If anything the people who post them should pay the media companies.

Genuine question, is it just links being provided to the news articles on the media organisations sites or is it full articles being posted on facebook?

Both. For Google it is links as a result of a search. For Facebook it is the news media pages that actually publish their own articles on Facebook, then usually linking back to their website.

However in the law there is no definition of what news is. So for Facebook it becomes very murky on what are pages news and what pages are not. Likewise for Google what are links to actual news.

**I don't think they should have to pay if the news organisations are posting the articles themselves, that just becomes a way of generating revenue by posting content.** If articles are being posted as a way of circumventing the media organisations copyright then that is a different story.

I guess the algorithms that determine what content shows up in people's news feed needs to be considered as well.

That's exactly the issue and why Facebook have shut-down the Australian news media pages. All the papers and TV/radio media etc Facebook pages have been shut-down. Any links to any news media pages or sites have also been removed, so you can't post a link to a news site any more.

 

[Leck]

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.

The internet is still the wild west that needs to evolve very quickly.

However my concern is FB's monopoly. They decided to use algorithms to shut down health and social services and block Australian content unnecessarily .

That's an issue. At least Google came to the table and were willing to discuss a fair price.

The Internet is about 20-30 years old and continuously evolving. All without an owner or government intervention. It is a remarkable cooperative effort for and by the people and governments need to keep their mits off it.

Facebook were given an ultimatum by the Australian government in the way of a new rule, pay up or you will be breaking the new rule. Facebook took the only course of action they could and shut-down the news sites so they didn't break the new rule. No great surprise.

The benefit of news media publishing on Facebook is all in the news media direction. It gives them exposure and free traffic to their sites.

The Australian Government got it completely wrong in this instance. No great surprise really when it comes to tech, the NLP have form in this area.

That's disappointing that you don't believe we've taken the right stance.

It's not about tech Mike, it's about Aussie made content. We should get paid.

Building Australia's media industry and nurturing our young talent is imperative. This argument isn't about the big players, it's about all our journos, designers, artists and producers that will come through in the next decade.

By bending to FB we set a dangerous precedent.

 

[gallagher]

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.

The internet is still the wild west that needs to evolve very quickly.

However my concern is FB's monopoly. They decided to use algorithms to shut down health and social services and block Australian content unnecessarily .

That's an issue. At least Google came to the table and were willing to discuss a fair price.

The Internet is about 20-30 years old and continuously evolving. All without an owner or government intervention. It is a remarkable cooperative effort for and by the people and governments need to keep their mits off it.

Facebook were given an ultimatum by the Australian government in the way of a new rule, pay up or you will be breaking the new rule. Facebook took the only course of action they could and shut-down the news sites so they didn't break the new rule. No great surprise.

The benefit of news media publishing on Facebook is all in the news media direction. It gives them exposure and free traffic to their sites.

The Australian Government got it completely wrong in this instance. No great surprise really when it comes to tech, the NLP have form in this area.


That's disappointing that you don't believe we've taken the right stance.

It's not about tech Mike, it's about Aussie made content. We should get paid.

Building Australia's media industry and nurturing our young talent is imperative. This argument isn't about the big players, it's about all our journos, designers, artists and producers that will come through in the next decade.

By bending to FB we set a dangerous precedent.

It's a bit lazy by the big media though, relying on Facebooks platform.

 

[Leck]

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.

The internet is still the wild west that needs to evolve very quickly.

However my concern is FB's monopoly. They decided to use algorithms to shut down health and social services and block Australian content unnecessarily .

That's an issue. At least Google came to the table and were willing to discuss a fair price.

The Internet is about 20-30 years old and continuously evolving. All without an owner or government intervention. It is a remarkable cooperative effort for and by the people and governments need to keep their mits off it.

Facebook were given an ultimatum by the Australian government in the way of a new rule, pay up or you will be breaking the new rule. Facebook took the only course of action they could and shut-down the news sites so they didn't break the new rule. No great surprise.

The benefit of news media publishing on Facebook is all in the news media direction. It gives them exposure and free traffic to their sites.

The Australian Government got it completely wrong in this instance. No great surprise really when it comes to tech, the NLP have form in this area.


That's disappointing that you don't believe we've taken the right stance.

It's not about tech Mike, it's about Aussie made content. We should get paid.

Building Australia's media industry and nurturing our young talent is imperative. This argument isn't about the big players, it's about all our journos, designers, artists and producers that will come through in the next decade.

By bending to FB we set a dangerous precedent.

It's a bit lazy by the big media though, relying on Facebooks platform.

Unfortunately they have a monopoly, and FB is only concerned about their share price.

 

[Tim Sheens]

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.

The internet is still the wild west that needs to evolve very quickly.

However my concern is FB's monopoly. They decided to use algorithms to shut down health and social services and block Australian content unnecessarily .

That's an issue. At least Google came to the table and were willing to discuss a fair price.

The Internet is about 20-30 years old and continuously evolving. All without an owner or government intervention. It is a remarkable cooperative effort for and by the people and governments need to keep their mits off it.

Facebook were given an ultimatum by the Australian government in the way of a new rule, pay up or you will be breaking the new rule. Facebook took the only course of action they could and shut-down the news sites so they didn't break the new rule. No great surprise.

The benefit of news media publishing on Facebook is all in the news media direction. It gives them exposure and free traffic to their sites.

The Australian Government got it completely wrong in this instance. No great surprise really when it comes to tech, the NLP have form in this area.


That's disappointing that you don't believe we've taken the right stance.

It's not about tech Mike, it's about Aussie made content. We should get paid.

Building Australia's media industry and nurturing our young talent is imperative. This argument isn't about the big players, it's about all our journos, designers, artists and producers that will come through in the next decade.

By bending to FB we set a dangerous precedent.

Murdoch has been bending us over as a nation and sticking his views as far as they can penetrate for decades, reaching to around the point of the standard covid test.

 

[BAGNF05]

Might jump back on FB and scroll away without having so much politics jammed down my throat. Winning!

 

[gallagher]

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.

The internet is still the wild west that needs to evolve very quickly.

However my concern is FB's monopoly. They decided to use algorithms to shut down health and social services and block Australian content unnecessarily .

That's an issue. At least Google came to the table and were willing to discuss a fair price.

The Internet is about 20-30 years old and continuously evolving. All without an owner or government intervention. It is a remarkable cooperative effort for and by the people and governments need to keep their mits off it.

Facebook were given an ultimatum by the Australian government in the way of a new rule, pay up or you will be breaking the new rule. Facebook took the only course of action they could and shut-down the news sites so they didn't break the new rule. No great surprise.

The benefit of news media publishing on Facebook is all in the news media direction. It gives them exposure and free traffic to their sites.

The Australian Government got it completely wrong in this instance. No great surprise really when it comes to tech, the NLP have form in this area.


That's disappointing that you don't believe we've taken the right stance.

It's not about tech Mike, it's about Aussie made content. We should get paid.

Building Australia's media industry and nurturing our young talent is imperative. This argument isn't about the big players, it's about all our journos, designers, artists and producers that will come through in the next decade.

By bending to FB we set a dangerous precedent.

It's a bit lazy by the big media though, relying on Facebooks platform.


Unfortunately they have a monopoly, and FB is only concerned about their share price.

It's not like it's a monopoly due to government stopping other opposition.

 

[cochise]

Why should Facebook pay for companies to post articles on the platform. they are not the ones posting them on there. If anything the people who post them should pay the media companies.

Genuine question, is it just links being provided to the news articles on the media organisations sites or is it full articles being posted on facebook?

Both. For Google it is links as a result of a search. For Facebook it is the news media pages that actually publish their own articles on Facebook, then usually linking back to their website.

However in the law there is no definition of what news is. So for Facebook it becomes very murky on what are pages news and what pages are not. Likewise for Google what are links to actual news.

**I don't think they should have to pay if the news organisations are posting the articles themselves, that just becomes a way of generating revenue by posting content.** If articles are being posted as a way of circumventing the media organisations copyright then that is a different story.

I guess the algorithms that determine what content shows up in people's news feed needs to be considered as well.

That's exactly the issue and why Facebook have shut-down the Australian news media pages. All the papers and TV/radio media etc Facebook pages have been shut-down. Any links to any news media pages or sites have also been removed, so you can't post a link to a news site any more.

From what I've read it appears the tech companies also didn't like the negotiation process for determining the price to be paid either.

I think that is probably the major issue for mine, I can understand the media companies wanting a slice if the content being posted is driving advertising revenue for the Tech companies without creating clicks for the media organisations. I would think there needs to be a clear differentiation between content posted by the media organisations and content posted by third parties and the tech companies themselves, also the role algorithms play in putting that content into users feeds.

That is my opinion based on my limited knowledge of facebook lol.

I used to use facebook until they took away the option of being unsearchable, as a teacher that was an important feature to me. They may have since returned it, I don't know, I just found after I left it that I didn't miss it.

 

[Leck]

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.

The internet is still the wild west that needs to evolve very quickly.

However my concern is FB's monopoly. They decided to use algorithms to shut down health and social services and block Australian content unnecessarily .

That's an issue. At least Google came to the table and were willing to discuss a fair price.

The Internet is about 20-30 years old and continuously evolving. All without an owner or government intervention. It is a remarkable cooperative effort for and by the people and governments need to keep their mits off it.

Facebook were given an ultimatum by the Australian government in the way of a new rule, pay up or you will be breaking the new rule. Facebook took the only course of action they could and shut-down the news sites so they didn't break the new rule. No great surprise.

The benefit of news media publishing on Facebook is all in the news media direction. It gives them exposure and free traffic to their sites.

The Australian Government got it completely wrong in this instance. No great surprise really when it comes to tech, the NLP have form in this area.


That's disappointing that you don't believe we've taken the right stance.

It's not about tech Mike, it's about Aussie made content. We should get paid.

Building Australia's media industry and nurturing our young talent is imperative. This argument isn't about the big players, it's about all our journos, designers, artists and producers that will come through in the next decade.

By bending to FB we set a dangerous precedent.

It's a bit lazy by the big media though, relying on Facebooks platform.


Unfortunately they have a monopoly, and FB is only concerned about their share price.

It's not like it's a monopoly due to government stopping other opposition.

Maybe not, but it has crept up on all of us slowly.

I commend Scomo for standing up to it, even if it's just for fighting for fair pay for a fair job done.

 

[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.

The internet is still the wild west that needs to evolve very quickly.

However my concern is FB's monopoly. They decided to use algorithms to shut down health and social services and block Australian content unnecessarily .

That's an issue. At least Google came to the table and were willing to discuss a fair price.

The Internet is about 20-30 years old and continuously evolving. All without an owner or government intervention. It is a remarkable cooperative effort for and by the people and governments need to keep their mits off it.

Facebook were given an ultimatum by the Australian government in the way of a new rule, pay up or you will be breaking the new rule. Facebook took the only course of action they could and shut-down the news sites so they didn't break the new rule. No great surprise.

The benefit of news media publishing on Facebook is all in the news media direction. It gives them exposure and free traffic to their sites.

The Australian Government got it completely wrong in this instance. No great surprise really when it comes to tech, the NLP have form in this area.


That's disappointing that you don't believe we've taken the right stance.

It's not about tech Mike, it's about Aussie made content. We should get paid.

Building Australia's media industry and nurturing our young talent is imperative. This argument isn't about the big players, it's about all our journos, designers, artists and producers that will come through in the next decade.

By bending to FB we set a dangerous precedent.

By implementing these laws we have set a dangerous precedent. It is absolutely about tech and Internet freedom and that's what the government doesn't understand.

The nurturing Aussie content is a bogus argument.

Facebook is not publishing these articles the news media are, they are the ones that click on the publish button, not Facebook. When they click the publish button the news media corporations get the benefit of Facebook exposure and then Facebook traffic being sent back to their site, not an insignificant amount either. It's double dipping by the news media corporations to then expect Facebook to actually have to pay the news media corporations for Facebook exposure and for Facebook sending traffic to the their news media sites.

Similar for google. You do a search and get a result with a link to a news site and the news media corporations expect Google to pay for sending traffic to their news media site. Ridiculous.

 

[gallagher]

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.

The internet is still the wild west that needs to evolve very quickly.

However my concern is FB's monopoly. They decided to use algorithms to shut down health and social services and block Australian content unnecessarily .

That's an issue. At least Google came to the table and were willing to discuss a fair price.

The Internet is about 20-30 years old and continuously evolving. All without an owner or government intervention. It is a remarkable cooperative effort for and by the people and governments need to keep their mits off it.

Facebook were given an ultimatum by the Australian government in the way of a new rule, pay up or you will be breaking the new rule. Facebook took the only course of action they could and shut-down the news sites so they didn't break the new rule. No great surprise.

The benefit of news media publishing on Facebook is all in the news media direction. It gives them exposure and free traffic to their sites.

The Australian Government got it completely wrong in this instance. No great surprise really when it comes to tech, the NLP have form in this area.


That's disappointing that you don't believe we've taken the right stance.

It's not about tech Mike, it's about Aussie made content. We should get paid.

Building Australia's media industry and nurturing our young talent is imperative. This argument isn't about the big players, it's about all our journos, designers, artists and producers that will come through in the next decade.

By bending to FB we set a dangerous precedent.

By implementing these laws we have set a dangerous precedent. It is absolutely about tech and Internet freedom and that's what the government doesn't understand.

The nurturing Aussie content is a bogus argument.

Facebook is not publishing these articles the news media are, they are the ones that click on the publish button, not Facebook. When they click the publish button the news media corporations get the benefit of Facebook exposure and then Facebook traffic being sent back to their site, not an insignificant amount either. It's double dipping by the news media corporations to then expect Facebook to actually have to pay the news media corporations for Facebook exposure and for Facebook sending traffic to the their news media sites.

Similar for google. You do a search and get a result with a link to a news site and the news media corporations expect Google to pay for sending traffic to their news media site. Ridiculous.

Yes. If they thought they were getting a raw deal then they wouldn't be giving Facebook their content.

 

[mike]

Why should Facebook pay for companies to post articles on the platform. they are not the ones posting them on there. If anything the people who post them should pay the media companies.

Genuine question, is it just links being provided to the news articles on the media organisations sites or is it full articles being posted on facebook?

Both. For Google it is links as a result of a search. For Facebook it is the news media pages that actually publish their own articles on Facebook, then usually linking back to their website.

However in the law there is no definition of what news is. So for Facebook it becomes very murky on what are pages news and what pages are not. Likewise for Google what are links to actual news.

**I don't think they should have to pay if the news organisations are posting the articles themselves, that just becomes a way of generating revenue by posting content.** If articles are being posted as a way of circumventing the media organisations copyright then that is a different story.

I guess the algorithms that determine what content shows up in people's news feed needs to be considered as well.

That's exactly the issue and why Facebook have shut-down the Australian news media pages. All the papers and TV/radio media etc Facebook pages have been shut-down. Any links to any news media pages or sites have also been removed, so you can't post a link to a news site any more.

From what I've read it appears the tech companies also didn't like the negotiation process for determining the price to be paid either.

I think that is probably the major issue for mine, **I can understand the media companies wanting a slice if the content being posted is driving advertising revenue for the Tech companies without creating clicks for the media organisations.** I would think there needs to be a clear differentiation between content posted by the media organisations and content posted by third parties and the tech companies themselves, also the role algorithms play in putting that content into users feeds.

That is my opinion based on my limited knowledge of facebook lol.

I used to use facebook until they took away the option of being unsearchable, as a teacher that was an important feature to me. They may have since returned it, I don't know, I just found after I left it that I didn't miss it.

But its not driving revenue. Facebook and Google don't need news media sites to generate advertising revenue, that's not the model. Users (People) are the model. They will generate advertising revenue without any news media content at all with very little difference to the revenue stream. The opposite is true though in that the news media corporations need Facebook and Google exposure and traffic.

 

[cochise]

Why should Facebook pay for companies to post articles on the platform. they are not the ones posting them on there. If anything the people who post them should pay the media companies.

Genuine question, is it just links being provided to the news articles on the media organisations sites or is it full articles being posted on facebook?

Both. For Google it is links as a result of a search. For Facebook it is the news media pages that actually publish their own articles on Facebook, then usually linking back to their website.

However in the law there is no definition of what news is. So for Facebook it becomes very murky on what are pages news and what pages are not. Likewise for Google what are links to actual news.

**I don't think they should have to pay if the news organisations are posting the articles themselves, that just becomes a way of generating revenue by posting content.** If articles are being posted as a way of circumventing the media organisations copyright then that is a different story.

I guess the algorithms that determine what content shows up in people's news feed needs to be considered as well.

That's exactly the issue and why Facebook have shut-down the Australian news media pages. All the papers and TV/radio media etc Facebook pages have been shut-down. Any links to any news media pages or sites have also been removed, so you can't post a link to a news site any more.

From what I've read it appears the tech companies also didn't like the negotiation process for determining the price to be paid either.

I think that is probably the major issue for mine, **I can understand the media companies wanting a slice if the content being posted is driving advertising revenue for the Tech companies without creating clicks for the media organisations.** I would think there needs to be a clear differentiation between content posted by the media organisations and content posted by third parties and the tech companies themselves, also the role algorithms play in putting that content into users feeds.

That is my opinion based on my limited knowledge of facebook lol.

I used to use facebook until they took away the option of being unsearchable, as a teacher that was an important feature to me. They may have since returned it, I don't know, I just found after I left it that I didn't miss it.

But its not driving revenue. Facebook and Google don't need news media sites to generate advertising revenue, that's not the model. Users (People) are the model. They will generate advertising revenue without any news media content at all with very little difference to the revenue stream. The opposite is true though in that the news media corporations need Facebook and Google exposure and traffic.

I am more talking about content that is not posted by the media organisations themselves. If 3rd parties or facebook themselves are posting articles from the media organisations then that is very different than the media organisations posting that themselves. That includes the algorithms used to get those articles into people's feeds.

 

[Leck]

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.

The internet is still the wild west that needs to evolve very quickly.

However my concern is FB's monopoly. They decided to use algorithms to shut down health and social services and block Australian content unnecessarily .

That's an issue. At least Google came to the table and were willing to discuss a fair price.

The Internet is about 20-30 years old and continuously evolving. All without an owner or government intervention. It is a remarkable cooperative effort for and by the people and governments need to keep their mits off it.

Facebook were given an ultimatum by the Australian government in the way of a new rule, pay up or you will be breaking the new rule. Facebook took the only course of action they could and shut-down the news sites so they didn't break the new rule. No great surprise.

The benefit of news media publishing on Facebook is all in the news media direction. It gives them exposure and free traffic to their sites.

The Australian Government got it completely wrong in this instance. No great surprise really when it comes to tech, the NLP have form in this area.


That's disappointing that you don't believe we've taken the right stance.

It's not about tech Mike, it's about Aussie made content. We should get paid.

Building Australia's media industry and nurturing our young talent is imperative. This argument isn't about the big players, it's about all our journos, designers, artists and producers that will come through in the next decade.

By bending to FB we set a dangerous precedent.

By implementing these laws we have set a dangerous precedent. It is absolutely about tech and Internet freedom and that's what the government doesn't understand.

The nurturing Aussie content is a bogus argument.

Facebook is not publishing these articles the news media are, they are the ones that click on the publish button, not Facebook. When they click the publish button the news media corporations get the benefit of Facebook exposure and then Facebook traffic being sent back to their site, not an insignificant amount either. It's double dipping by the news media corporations to then expect Facebook to actually have to pay the news media corporations for Facebook exposure and for Facebook sending traffic to the their news media sites.

Similar for google. You do a search and get a result with a link to a news site and the news media corporations expect Google to pay for sending traffic to their news media site. Ridiculous.

We're not arguing about internet freedom or tech,.. are we, seems like you are?

I'm arguing about content, who creates it and who gets paid.

We should get paid, not FB or Google.

 

[mike]

Why should Facebook pay for companies to post articles on the platform. they are not the ones posting them on there. If anything the people who post them should pay the media companies.

Genuine question, is it just links being provided to the news articles on the media organisations sites or is it full articles being posted on facebook?

Both. For Google it is links as a result of a search. For Facebook it is the news media pages that actually publish their own articles on Facebook, then usually linking back to their website.

However in the law there is no definition of what news is. So for Facebook it becomes very murky on what are pages news and what pages are not. Likewise for Google what are links to actual news.

**I don't think they should have to pay if the news organisations are posting the articles themselves, that just becomes a way of generating revenue by posting content.** If articles are being posted as a way of circumventing the media organisations copyright then that is a different story.

I guess the algorithms that determine what content shows up in people's news feed needs to be considered as well.

That's exactly the issue and why Facebook have shut-down the Australian news media pages. All the papers and TV/radio media etc Facebook pages have been shut-down. Any links to any news media pages or sites have also been removed, so you can't post a link to a news site any more.

From what I've read it appears the tech companies also didn't like the negotiation process for determining the price to be paid either.

I think that is probably the major issue for mine, **I can understand the media companies wanting a slice if the content being posted is driving advertising revenue for the Tech companies without creating clicks for the media organisations.** I would think there needs to be a clear differentiation between content posted by the media organisations and content posted by third parties and the tech companies themselves, also the role algorithms play in putting that content into users feeds.

That is my opinion based on my limited knowledge of facebook lol.

I used to use facebook until they took away the option of being unsearchable, as a teacher that was an important feature to me. They may have since returned it, I don't know, I just found after I left it that I didn't miss it.

But its not driving revenue. Facebook and Google don't need news media sites to generate advertising revenue, that's not the model. Users (People) are the model. They will generate advertising revenue without any news media content at all with very little difference to the revenue stream. The opposite is true though in that the news media corporations need Facebook and Google exposure and traffic.

I am more talking about content that is not posted by the media organisations themselves. If 3rd parties or facebook themselves are posting articles from the media organisations then that is very different then the media organisations posting that themselves. That includes the algorithms used to get those articles into people's feeds.

That's really not an issue though, the vast majority would be just shares back to the original article posted by the news media corporation. Very rare to see someone bother to cut and paste an article. It's a different beast to the forum.

 

[cochise]

Why should Facebook pay for companies to post articles on the platform. they are not the ones posting them on there. If anything the people who post them should pay the media companies.

Genuine question, is it just links being provided to the news articles on the media organisations sites or is it full articles being posted on facebook?

Both. For Google it is links as a result of a search. For Facebook it is the news media pages that actually publish their own articles on Facebook, then usually linking back to their website.

However in the law there is no definition of what news is. So for Facebook it becomes very murky on what are pages news and what pages are not. Likewise for Google what are links to actual news.

**I don't think they should have to pay if the news organisations are posting the articles themselves, that just becomes a way of generating revenue by posting content.** If articles are being posted as a way of circumventing the media organisations copyright then that is a different story.

I guess the algorithms that determine what content shows up in people's news feed needs to be considered as well.

That's exactly the issue and why Facebook have shut-down the Australian news media pages. All the papers and TV/radio media etc Facebook pages have been shut-down. Any links to any news media pages or sites have also been removed, so you can't post a link to a news site any more.

From what I've read it appears the tech companies also didn't like the negotiation process for determining the price to be paid either.

I think that is probably the major issue for mine, **I can understand the media companies wanting a slice if the content being posted is driving advertising revenue for the Tech companies without creating clicks for the media organisations.** I would think there needs to be a clear differentiation between content posted by the media organisations and content posted by third parties and the tech companies themselves, also the role algorithms play in putting that content into users feeds.

That is my opinion based on my limited knowledge of facebook lol.

I used to use facebook until they took away the option of being unsearchable, as a teacher that was an important feature to me. They may have since returned it, I don't know, I just found after I left it that I didn't miss it.

But its not driving revenue. Facebook and Google don't need news media sites to generate advertising revenue, that's not the model. Users (People) are the model. They will generate advertising revenue without any news media content at all with very little difference to the revenue stream. The opposite is true though in that the news media corporations need Facebook and Google exposure and traffic.

I am more talking about content that is not posted by the media organisations themselves. If 3rd parties or facebook themselves are posting articles from the media organisations then that is very different then the media organisations posting that themselves. That includes the algorithms used to get those articles into people's feeds.

That's really not an issue though, the vast majority would be just shares back to the original article posted by the news media corporation. Very rare to see someone bother to cut and paste an article. It's a different beast to the forum.

As I said I'm a little naive on how facebook works, media organisations weren't overly using back when I was lol

 

[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.

The internet is still the wild west that needs to evolve very quickly.

However my concern is FB's monopoly. They decided to use algorithms to shut down health and social services and block Australian content unnecessarily .

That's an issue. At least Google came to the table and were willing to discuss a fair price.

The Internet is about 20-30 years old and continuously evolving. All without an owner or government intervention. It is a remarkable cooperative effort for and by the people and governments need to keep their mits off it.

Facebook were given an ultimatum by the Australian government in the way of a new rule, pay up or you will be breaking the new rule. Facebook took the only course of action they could and shut-down the news sites so they didn't break the new rule. No great surprise.

The benefit of news media publishing on Facebook is all in the news media direction. It gives them exposure and free traffic to their sites.

The Australian Government got it completely wrong in this instance. No great surprise really when it comes to tech, the NLP have form in this area.


That's disappointing that you don't believe we've taken the right stance.

It's not about tech Mike, it's about Aussie made content. We should get paid.

Building Australia's media industry and nurturing our young talent is imperative. This argument isn't about the big players, it's about all our journos, designers, artists and producers that will come through in the next decade.

By bending to FB we set a dangerous precedent.

By implementing these laws we have set a dangerous precedent. It is absolutely about tech and Internet freedom and that's what the government doesn't understand.

The nurturing Aussie content is a bogus argument.

Facebook is not publishing these articles the news media are, they are the ones that click on the publish button, not Facebook. When they click the publish button the news media corporations get the benefit of Facebook exposure and then Facebook traffic being sent back to their site, not an insignificant amount either. It's double dipping by the news media corporations to then expect Facebook to actually have to pay the news media corporations for Facebook exposure and for Facebook sending traffic to the their news media sites.

Similar for google. You do a search and get a result with a link to a news site and the news media corporations expect Google to pay for sending traffic to their news media site. Ridiculous.


We're not arguing about internet freedom or tech,.. are we, seems like you are?

I'm arguing about content, who creates it and who gets paid.

We should get paid, not FB or Google.

When you are talking about charging for hosted links you are absolutely talking about Internet freedom and tech. The whole World Wide Web is based on free links to sites and has been since it's introduction. These laws change that fundamental.

If you are not getting paid for your content I would be taking that up with your employer, not Facebook or Google.

 

[Leck]

Why should Facebook pay for companies to post articles on the platform. they are not the ones posting them on there. If anything the people who post them should pay the media companies.

Genuine question, is it just links being provided to the news articles on the media organisations sites or is it full articles being posted on facebook?

Both. For Google it is links as a result of a search. For Facebook it is the news media pages that actually publish their own articles on Facebook, then usually linking back to their website.

However in the law there is no definition of what news is. So for Facebook it becomes very murky on what are pages news and what pages are not. Likewise for Google what are links to actual news.

**I don't think they should have to pay if the news organisations are posting the articles themselves, that just becomes a way of generating revenue by posting content.** If articles are being posted as a way of circumventing the media organisations copyright then that is a different story.

I guess the algorithms that determine what content shows up in people's news feed needs to be considered as well.

That's exactly the issue and why Facebook have shut-down the Australian news media pages. All the papers and TV/radio media etc Facebook pages have been shut-down. Any links to any news media pages or sites have also been removed, so you can't post a link to a news site any more.

From what I've read it appears the tech companies also didn't like the negotiation process for determining the price to be paid either.

I think that is probably the major issue for mine, **I can understand the media companies wanting a slice if the content being posted is driving advertising revenue for the Tech companies without creating clicks for the media organisations.** I would think there needs to be a clear differentiation between content posted by the media organisations and content posted by third parties and the tech companies themselves, also the role algorithms play in putting that content into users feeds.

That is my opinion based on my limited knowledge of facebook lol.

I used to use facebook until they took away the option of being unsearchable, as a teacher that was an important feature to me. They may have since returned it, I don't know, I just found after I left it that I didn't miss it.

But its not driving revenue. Facebook and Google don't need news media sites to generate advertising revenue, that's not the model. Users (People) are the model. They will generate advertising revenue without any news media content at all with very little difference to the revenue stream. The opposite is true though in that the news media corporations need Facebook and Google exposure and traffic.

I am more talking about content that is not posted by the media organisations themselves. If 3rd parties or facebook themselves are posting articles from the media organisations then that is very different then the media organisations posting that themselves. That includes the algorithms used to get those articles into people's feeds.

That's really not an issue though, the vast majority would be just shares back to the original article posted by the news media corporation. Very rare to see someone bother to cut and paste an article. It's a different beast to the forum.

There's also a lot of excellent and original Aussie content produced locally that features globally, and grows organically. They need to get paid.

It sounds like you and I will have to agree to disagree with our opinions.

What I will say, is that I believe we should closely look at our facebook, instagram and whatsapp accounts and check how we engage with these platforms and review their privacy settings.

I've personally deleted all these accounts.

 

[jirskyr]

It’s a false analogy, Google and Facebook don’t need the news media to sell advertising on their platforms. On the other hand the news media use/need these platforms to get exposure and to send traffic to their sites. The flow is already to the advantage of the news media.

Facebook and Google (especially) are very much like radio and television - they are content aggregators for the purpose of selling advertising. FB I'll grant will still have users if it cuts out all media content, people sharing pictures of cats and dogs etc. Google will have substantially less users if it cuts news, because that is a prime driver of its search volume.

The ACCC itself, in its findings, identified that something like 81% of total advertising revenue goes to Google and Facebook, with the remaining 19% amongst all other advertising sellers combined.

You say that the flow of traffic is to the advantage of the news media, and yet you note earlier that traditional news media has lost advertising revenues to a host of sources including ebay etc. It doesn't seem to make sense, if FB and Google generate a positive flow of total traffic TOWARDS media companies, why they would have reduced income streams in the digital world?

Lastly, your final comment, fairly naive don't you think? You might like to believe the internet is highly cooperative and collaborative, yet Facebook has just proven overnight how much control it potentially has by simply flicking a switch and turning off all Australian media access to the platform.

You don't think, if Google and Facebook chose to do so, they could very seriously and rapidly impact the global internet behaviour? They are private US companies, not elected. You may champion lack of government intervention in the internet, but at the very least they are my elected government, not a megacorp run by a skinny white American kid who invented a social linking product in his dormitoty.

 

[jirskyr]

The Australian Government got it completely wrong in this instance. No great surprise really when it comes to tech, the NLP have form in this area.

Just to be clear - Labor supports the proposed legislation, so on this one it's fairly bipartisan, not just the Libs.

I hope everyone realises that the legislation was developed come on the back of the 2019 ACCC review into digital platforms and media. This is the same ACCC people run to when they think a company has wronged them by Australian Consumer Law.

The ACCC found an imbalance in the competitive capacity between majority digital platforms and media entities. Unless folks are suggesting that the ACCC has an agenda? Because it's supposed to be a neutral government authority to protect consumer and business interests. I don't believe Rupert Murdoch holds particular sway over the ACCC.

Complete findings, transparent, here:
https://www.accc.gov.au/publications/digital-platforms-inquiry-final-report