Thoughts on this Australian news media bargaining code
“Facebook’s ‘dog act’ against all Australians” this article fundamentally shows that publishers/journalists don’t understand how Facebook or Google works.
So I have invented a new term for this and it will be “okay newsroom” instead of “okay boomer”.
A quote from the article:
“The Facebook model is to use all the hard work and resources of those newsrooms — the very same stories themselves — to attract millions of eyeballs to its millions of pages and then use that monster audience to pull advertisers away from the media outlets that produce those stories.”
Now if I see a link to a news article on Facebook or Google… wait let me explain what a link is first.
Link — Noun
A link (short for hyperlink) is an HTML object that allows you to jump to a new location when you click or tap it. Links are found on almost every webpage and provide a simple means of navigating between pages on the web.
So for the cheap seats at the back when you click a link on Facebook or Google I end leaving those sites and end up on the publisher’s website reading the article. I don’t end up reading a copy of that article on Facebook or Google.
That means when I'm on that publisher's news article page I will see the advertisements (for which there are generally tons). Everything google and Facebook are doing so far seems helpful.
Now there is another problem entirely called Ripoff ‘News’ Sites. Those sites literally plagiarise authors work word for word and slam that page full of ads. This is more harmful to publishers because it is stealing someone else's content and making money off of it, but that's not what the government and news media are focusing on. They are focusing on Google and Facebook linking to articles which they didn't pay the publishers for, well sorry that's not how links work.
Facebook is a social platform its users can share links (there’s that word again) and thoughts about the said article if they feel abliged. Enabling the distribution of articles very easily and stretching the audience to more viewers… gosh that sounds helpful.
Google is a search engine, if I search for “Sydney” I will get links to websites related to my search term AND links to news articles that also relate to my term. Here check out this link to my google search for yourself free of charge.
Damn its as if google is helping surface news articles… cause I wasn't even searching for news content. How shit of google hey?
So why do Google and Facebook have to pay when really they are enabling more visitors to news sites?
I've linked through to two different websites in this article, google and news.com.au should I pay these two parties… no that would be stupid.
Do I agree with the actions of Facebook in relation to blocking content from news resources?
Somewhat.
Does it concern me that Facebook could easily censor whoever and whenever?
Yes, but its also been helpful when people spread hate.
Do I fundamentally disagree with what the government and publishers are wanting to do?
Yes, I see no reason why Google and Facebook should pay publishers for linking back to their website.
I could be thoroughly missing the point of this Australian news media bargaining code… but I don't think I am. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
