Meta threatens to stop sharing news in USA to protest publisher payment plan Meta, the social media conglomerate formerly known as Facebook, has threatened to remove news from its platforms if the US adopts a law that would force it to negotiate with publishers to pay them for allowing links to their content. If that sounds familiar, your memory is holding up well: Australia proposed just such a law in …
Tough. Either that's fair use, in which case the news outlets should not have the right to compel payment; or it's a copyright violation, in which case existing law covers it. If the news outlets don't like it, they can put content behind a paywall.
I do not like Meta or Alphabet at all, but this sort of law is abusive, an incursion on freedom of expression, and a bad precedent.
Those media also take advantage from Feckbook or Google by getting a lot of traffic they wouldn't have without a link to their content. They value this traffic through ads. By having more visitors, they have also more opportunity to sell other services to more people.
The media should have the choice to refuse to have their content linked by other corporations if they will. But paying them for these links ? I'm not sure.
== Bring us Dabbsy back! ==
As I understand it, the argument in Australia was that Google in particular was 'scraping' the news websites in order to summarise the stories on their search page. It was therefore much less likely that someone would click-through and visit the news site first hand. Adverts shown on the news sites were never seen and fewer apparent visitors to the sites meant less money charged for those adverts which were taken. Any advertising on Google's page, where its scraped version of the story was shown, went straight to Google.
So the news sites did all the hard work but Google got all the benefit.
You could see this charging system as just another form of old-fashioned syndication where the author of a work lets someone else use that work for their own benefit, on payment of a syndication fee. Why should automated digital scraping engines be any different to the newspapers which take the Peanuts or Farside cartoons?
M.
If the news sites didn't want Google to show content, a simple robots.txt file would have solved the problem.
The link tax solution seems to be a way to get money for the media companies who are enabling the problem for profit.
Given the media is the main beneficiary, I'm also a bit wary of the reporting on this story. Beating the big tech bad drum is very popular but Murdock and friends are some of the dirtiest players out there.
Being proactive appears to be an unpopular idea I see...
However, at the bottom of the linked article (from 2010 so things my have changed), there is a list of other ways to prevent Google linking your pages. "Superior Solutions to the Robots.txt" includes the following - Noindex In most cases, the best replacement for robots.txt exclusion is the robots meta tag. By adding 'noindex' and making sure that you DON'T add 'nofollow', your pages will stay out of the search engine results but will pass link value. This is a win/win!"
So I may have been slightly wrong about the method (hey, I'm not a web expert!) but the idea is still valid - don't want your pages showing up on Google? Don't let Google scrape them... Ok, the article was about Facebook but the OP had already gone off piste
There's a strong difference between allowing Google to **INDEX** your content, and allowing Google to **SCRAPE AND REPUBLISH** your content. Unfortunately you can't tell which one Google is doing by the requests they make to your webserver.
In the first case, Google searches lead to clicks that land on your website, showing whatever third party or self-provisioned advertising you're relying on to help pay your reporters to get out and get the news.
In the second case, Google gets the clicks and the ad revenue, because unless someone goes to the extra specific effort of locating your site, they'll be reading the content from some branch of Google's services directly.
IIRC there was a case in France where some publisher insisted that Google index the content without crawling it at all - pretty much a contradiction in terms, because they can't index it if they can't read it - and a lot of other cases have sounded quite similar. But from this article it seems pretty clear that the issue these new laws are trying to address is the second case.
Considering Faecesbook's algorythms are designed to send you what you're most likely to click on by their intensive monitoring, if you want to stop seeing such links perhaps you should vhange your web habits.
No popcorn icon, so I'll have a beer. As I do not use Faecesbook for anything, I do not get their news feed. But I do enjoy watching the back and forth.
Are the likes of Meta and Google also to be obliged to pay those rags and comics which do not provide for engaging presentation of immediate public comment to breaking news and/or are preventing greater public acceptance [or rejection] of their editorial opinion and stories of activities and events in the past, both recent and more ancient, because of its access only through a paywall?
They will have to draw a line somewhere between q anon type conspiracy sites talking about 5G chips in vaccines and Jewish space lasers vs the AP for what qualifies as "news". No doubt the far right will want to widen that definition as much as possible, since most of their "news" is conspiracy theories.
The left will be happy with the status quo and in no way attempt to widen the definition of what's considered news in order to spew *their* bile.
Our's is *good* bile. Left good! Right bad! I have always been at war with Eastasia.
Until next week, anyway.
There's a difference between championing healthcare, and trying to overthrow the government.
Or, to be less glib, NONE of the media companies censor opinion, they censor right wing LIES. And those lies aren't about who ate the last cookie, they are lies that are a danger to life, democracy, freedom, safety. Take your pick.
Now, when the "left" starts posting such shit, and then gets away with it, we can talk.
That comment was made by a sitting US representative that has recently retained her seat :rolleyes:
Personally I think that any company threatening to withdraw from a market for political reasons ought to be forced to actually go through with it. Just call that bluff (yes, bluff, let's not forget that not being in a market also means no advertisers or ad revenue from there).
Once that sort of blackmail is called a few times companies like Google and Meta will go back to ordinary lobbying and blackmailing politicians with the personal information they have scooped up..
" companies like Google and Meta will go back to ordinary lobbying and blackmailing politicians with the personal information they have scooped up.."
It's more like the politicians are coming ontheir own behalf in order to ask Google , Facebook et al to "help" them with various issues.
I understand Meta claiming that them showing a preview/snippet could work to boost traffic/subscriptions to the source media but to paraphrase Christine Keeler...they would say that wouldn't they.
By giving people a snippet and a link to open a new tab/window to read the article, Meta's intention is that you will come straight back and continue to be monetised. If they stopped showing them then people may go direct to the news site and skip out Meta altogether. I am sure that an independent audit would show that Meta makes more money from the process than any linked media site
Well, if people decide to not visit the "news" site after seeing a snipped, it means the rest is not worth reading. It's like movie industry complaining people don't pay for watching trailers.
When "link tax" will be applied, this is only going to increase the incentive for outlets to produce click baits, so that people click that link and see ads rather than actual valuable content.
That being said, the Facebook should be paying for all the content they get on the site, not just publishers.
Germany and Spain although tried to come up with some "Google Tax" to have Google support the struggling revenue of (online) news papers.
Those attempts pretty much failed to make any impact, i believe all the bigger news outlets gave Google a free licence after Google listed them out when they asked for money.
According to the article the link tax works in Australia, I wonder what's the difference that made it work in down under?
Thanks for the downvotes. I could see that coming from a mile away.
What some people are clearly failing to understand is that the Internet is built on links. Why the hell should anyone have to pay to link to anything, especially when those links give you a shitload of traffic which you can hopefully make some money from?
These stupid taxes fundamentally undermine how the Internet works.
I guess some people's hatred of Facebook prevents them from seeing straight.
Social media has spent most of the last 15-20 years supplanting "traditional" WWW services. It could practically be considered another "protocol", albeit one with terrible design standards; high bandwidth needs for no good reason, and various other criticisms.
Phone, suggested posts and "news feed" are much easier to advertise through than generic news website that requires "typing" to open the relevant URL; to say nothing of thought required on part of user "I want to read the news now, I will go to newspaper of choice site".
But the more Faecesbook tries to tighten it's grip (to say nothing of how useless the platform is now being overrun with suggested posts rather than showing stuff in groups that one is actually a member of) the more inclined the users left will be to move on. I know I'm amongst the latter of users fed up of the Zuck; however, swapping to an alternate is tricky particularly where contact details for so-and-so are basically linked to the platform; as are the group functions.
As one of your downvoters I'll try to answer. It's only fair, after all.
Firstly, Google and Facebook aren't just sharing links. They're cutting snippets from articles as well. In a lot of cases with news you don't need more than a couple of sentences summary of a story, unless you're particularly interested. So the premise of your comment is incorrect anyway.
But ignoring the rights and wrongs of this case, society has a problem. If you want to operate a democracy bigger than a city state you need some sort of independent media. If that's going to happen, you need journalists. To get journalists, you have to pay them. Historically this has been done by a mix of subscriptions and using the content to sell advertising. If Google and Facebook manage to break that model by hoovering up all the advertising revenue on the internet - then who's going to pay for journalism? I've heard estimates from recent years that they were capturing over 90% of all the extra online ad spend in the UK for the last few years.
Now admittedly the media were stupid, and gave their content away free online at the beginning, and set expectations - making it harder to sell. But they weren't expecting to lose the advertising war so badly. Also their response to falling revenenues has been to cut quality, rather than to raise prices - because they've felt that would be suicidal in the current market.
But society needs a broad-based and mostly independent media to function properly. Google and Facebook appear to be doing most to fuck that up. Both are monopolies. Both are therefore an easy target to try and keep the current model limping along, rather than trying to solve the problem in other ways.
Dear Scrutinizer,
Your rather rude reply to the polite comment by not-Spartacus shows that in your undying urge to rant, you conveniently ignore the main point of his reply:
"Firstly, Google and Facebook aren't just sharing links. They're cutting snippets from articles as well. In a lot of cases with news you don't need more than a couple of sentences summary of a story, unless you're particularly interested."
Clearly this is more than a "link", as you imply.
We trust that you will correct this mistake going forward.
Yours Faithfully, Anonymous Cowards inc.
- Hardly rebust - full of flaws.
- You aren't going to admit to your mistakes? That isn't the plus point you seem to think it is.
- Don't get wound up by someone elses humorous AC response to your comment. The "snowflake" look isn't a good one.
Now, why not address the point made by "I ain't sparticus"?
> I made no mistakes in my comments. You'll realise that one day.
In your world, maybe. Are you a flat-earther too?
> Going down the insult road with the snowflake comment are we petal?
You're one of those that can dish out insults and attacks, yet get all offended when you get it back. Yep, are you MAGA?
Don't try to claim moral authority after the abuse you started this thread with.
> The herd mentality thing is never a good look.
Definitely MAGA. If it's raining outside, and everyone says that it's raining, agreeing with them doesn't make you part of the herd.
Being a part of a group that continually denies the truth because, err. Q, deep state, libs stealing elections, then that is a herd - a cult of sheep.
The premise of my comment is not incorrect. It's dead on accurate.
The Central Scrutinizer,
Did you even bother to read my post?
but fucking the Internet by demanding link taxes is fundamentally stupid.
This isn't a link tax. It's a fee for using copyright material.
The point for Google and Facebook is they want you to stay on their website, seeing the adverts they post. Not going to the news company's website to see theirs.
You're conflating the link and the excerpt from the actual news article. Much as they might like to I don't think any news publishers are actually seriously asking to be paid just to allow a link to their site. What they're asking for is to be paid for those excerpts that are being republished *on Google/Facebook's platform*, *alongside* the link.
Typical. Because people disagree with you, they must be siding with Murdoch.
I'll criticise Biden for stuff - doesn't make me a trumptard.
Debate seems to be too nuanced for you.
Still, what has Murdoch got to do with it? This article is about the US bill, not the Australian one.
As you no doubt checked the facts first, please explain how you misunderstood the bills summary?:
>> "This bill creates a four-year safe harbor from antitrust laws for print, broadcast, or digital news companies to collectively negotiate with online content distributors (e.g., social media companies) regarding the terms on which the news companies' content may be distributed by online content distributors." <<
CONTENT, NOT LINKS
HTH
Debate seems to be too nuanced for me. That's rich, coming from you, pal. I never said you were siding with Murdoch. You're trying to verbal me.
I stand by my comments that no-one should have to pay to link to anything, even if it is Facebook or Google. That undermines how the Internet works.
Downvote all you all like. I'll see it as an indication of how wrong you will all be proved.
>"when those links give you a shitload of traffic which you can hopefully make some money from?"
And this "syndication levy" is just another way the news originators hope to make money from links to their work, so I don't see the issue you perceive.
Remember you and I get paid by money changing hands, the levy is just another way of ensuring the largest accumulators of money, spread it around those that contribute to their success...
I agree with you that a strong independent media sector is important, but I'm not as convinced that this law does anything about it. I hate Facebook a lot, and if we just decided we'll take their money and give it to someone more deserving, it sounds great. That's not how laws should work though. The major question is what Facebook is doing that they shouldn't be. If that's quoting snippets of articles, then let the law forbid or regulate that, but in that case, Facebook responding by no longer quoting news stories should also be an acceptable result.
As I see it, the law currently has the problem that it also includes linking, not just quoting. It's structured as if to say "linking and quoting is wrong and you should pay if you do it". However, if Facebook responds by no longer doing what the law says is wrong, that's not the answer people hope for because they no longer link to news stories. The law could be changed to only include quoting, and that would probably lead to a better result (Facebook no longer allows quotes but still links people to news sites which can then collect advertising), but the writers of the law don't appear to want to go that way. When Facebook responded by blocking news in Australia, the politicians who passed the law that made that necessary protested that Facebook stopped doing the harmful thing they were just complaining about. If this law is intended to punish, it should be specific about what things are being punished, and no longer doing those things should be as good an outcome as paying money while continuing to do them.
If the likes of Google and Meta and Twitter and Apple and Private Eye got their acts together, both individually and/or in concert with each other or A.N.Others, would traditional and conventional news organisations and their string pulling puppetmasters be forced to share the more advanced intelligent information and novel entertainment and smarter education that they .... a NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTivated IT Competition and Unified Universal Opposition ..... would be world wide web hosting and sharing relatively freely.
And who’s saying it can’t/won’t be equally well done, by an awful lot less, to cause an exactly similar mess? And goodness knows what Johnny Rotten Foreigners have in their pipelines with regard to effecting radical fundamental changes way beyond the command and control of established forces, bankrupt of proprietary novel intellectual property sources and resources.
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