Facebook blocking news sharing

Ok so what’s the deal with the new legislation around sharing of news content by Facebook and Google. I don’t get it!! I like to think I’m normally pretty intelligent but I don’t understand this. Why is it a bad thing to share free news content? We all become more educated and the news publishers get free exposures and traffic to their site.

In response to the the new legislation, Facebook has banned the sharing of news content. So we can’t share published news but old mate can post a meme claiming anything? I don’t think this is a good move at all. In a vacuum of actual news to spread, fake news will spread like wildfire. (I do understand that news outlets are not always the most reliable source of information )
Can anyone enlighten me on anything I’ve missed?

 

I've been wondering the same thing.

From what it looks like to me the news agencies were not concerned about the regurgitating of 'their' free to view news, but rather wanted to profit from it.
FB and Google(?) instead told them where to go, as I'm sure they would tell me to do if I wanted to charge them for what I share on thier platforms..

 

Utter plagurism by the search engines and regurgitators - if they don't want to pay for it, then they can go jump. I have never used FB for my news (or olds). So I know that I won't be missing anything.

Judging by FB's demographic, kids no longer use it & will use other (r Apps for their noose.

I am right behind the changes to the legislation to change to making the social media providers pay the news writers for the content that they provide.

Back to my News.com.au, smh.com.au, abc.gov.net.au news services

 

Sort of explained here ... Facebook bans Australian publishers and people from sharing or viewing news content

The disclaimer on FB says one cannot share "Australian news articles" - yet it also won't let me share new articles from the US, about something happening in the US, which is a bit annoying when trying to "discuss" the Texan gas pipelines freezing

Personally I support the move by Australia, otherwise all news will need to be hidden behind individual paywalls ... surely the multibilliondollar profit makers can afford 0.000001c per article

 

I don’t see it as plagiarism. Google and Facebook post links to the news site. News sites have got free users for years of these companies. A user clicks on the link and goes to the news site to read the story. The news site advertises on their website so they earn more money when more users go to their site. I think it is a bad business model, but they chose it and many are moving to subscription. Why should Facebook and Google have to pay Newscorp to give them their own users, that does not make sense. Is google plagiarizing the local sparkeys website by linking to it and giving the sparky a customers when a user searches for an electrician?

 

Australians can’t share any news and no one can share Australian news. I find it quite frustrating as I see Facebook as a platform for getting news out there. I have friends all over the world and some issues don’t make it to the typical Australia news outlets and now I can’t see what they are sharing. Facebook is also used by community and special interest groups - the block on sharing of news content will significantly affect their mode of operation. I guess to me it’s like people sharing news articles on here - should PC pay for that or should it be banned? Seems silly. Would just make people less informed.

 

I can’t even read news that I have a paid subscription for on Facebook anymore !

 

From what I have read, FB and Google are hiding away news articles in response to this, I don't blame them. Even though you pay a subscription to a news site, you still go to Facebook to get it instead of going directly to the companies website. That shows that Facebook is valuable to the news sites as that is where the readers attention is. Now the news sites want Facebook and Google to pay them for the privilege of giving them users.

 

Ok so Facebook have disabled Qld Health (no more public health information for us), BoM (no more weather warnings for us), etc. This is not cool at all. WTF. Are we in Myanmar?!

 

Oh wow! It sounds like they are trying to show the government that they are a valuable resourse for public information.

 

Bit of a dumb move by the government. Sharing links to news would have acheived the 'stated' objectives, but instead the news corporations want to get payment. The platforms aren't going to pay providers for links.

It now means they'll get less traffic to their own websites which will then reduce their own advertising income. Consumers will still get their news but they'll have to hunt for it.

This morning the Facebook pages for news orgs are blank. Nothing there at all. I can't help but wonder if this is a deliberate move by Facebook to demonstate that life for news orgs might be fairly quiet without the social media platforms.

 

I agree. This is a statement according to Facebook (may be true or not).

"Last year Facebook generated approximately 5.1 billion free referrals to Australian publishers worth an estimated AU$407 million. Despite some of these discussions, Facebook does not steal, take or copy news content"

Changes to Sharing and Viewing News on Facebook in Australia

 

It's like of game of chicken - who's going to blink first

I can see both sides of the equation in that FB and Google are important sources of information nowadays, but I can also understand that the journalists would like to get paid for their contributions.

I think the solution is to have the content "available" to be viewed if the user chooses to follow the link - and pay an extremely small royalty every time someone clicks on the article to read it. Like they do in the music industry. I mean - FB made over $29 billion last financial year - and Google $162 billion - off the backs of journalists and the like

I'd be dubious about believing FB's view of things - it's a bit like asking an oil company about the future of EV's.

 

... and this is just wrong of FB - these are essential services, not "news"

Fire authorities, Bureau of Meteorology and state health pages caught up in Facebook news ban

Suspect the government - yet again - made a ham of negotiations

 

curious....if a news article is shared on Property Chat is @Simon Hampel also subject to the same laws ?

 

That's probably Facebook telling the government and public that there will be unexpected consiequences of the new laws.

 

It is a lame attempt by legacy media to try and reap some $$$ before they become completely irrelevant. Notice it is only the big players that want this - independent media is going to be the victim here. Plenty of other organisations are being caught up in this too.

 

Legacy media??? WTF? I prefer my content written by journos not winos who can barely $ a sntc 2geta.

 

Makes you wonder who is actually at the negotiating table ...

 

I'll give you a hint. His name starts with Rupert and ends with Murdoch.