> Paying publishers would most likely cost Meta, which generated $164.5 billion in revenue last year, 62 million Canadian dollars a year, or about $44 million.
Banning news was likely an economic decision. The amount they would have to pay publishers and the costs associated with payment outweighed the benefits of having news on the platform. So Meta responded accordingly based on a law that would make them pay publishers.
I think it says more about the Canadian law-makers and publishers that pushed for this law than it does about Meta, AI generated content, and fake news. Who benefits from this law? Seems like everyone is worse off.
The open question is whether "subsidize the news" is sufficient for society's real goal, "trustworthy news".
Facebook meanwhile would have to pay publishers for news links that you and I post on our feeds. That is much closer to a shakedown, and the service can work just fine (better, one may argue) without this category of links. So regardless of the dollar amount saying no is the better option for them.
If you run a similar Facebook-adjacent company, you’ll think twice before trying to squeeze any money from them.
What a deceptive sentence. First it quotes worldwide numbers instead of only the Canadian share, and then uses revenue instead of profit.
Did you channel your own bias?
I bought an oil tanker for $100,000,000, and sold it for $100,020,000. My revenue was $100,020,000, so an extra tax of $400,000 should be no problem for me, right?
Even their net income was over 60 billions.
this forced the companies to the negotiating table because the question wasn't to pay for news or not, but pay for news, pay a fine for no news, or leave the market entirely.
Australia has the 2nd most concentrated media industry in the world - only China is even more concentrated [0]
Like everything else, morals are for chumps. It's oligarchs fighting each other.
[0] - https://gmicp.org/communications-media-and-internet-concentr...
Clarification: I guess I don't view your statement as a negation, modification, or point of contrast to the statement above. Both are accurate as I understand the situation.
My understanding is that "and" is more appropriate for additive information.
I got that you don't like Murdoch.
On the other: news is largely produced by private companies. Their ability to reach customers and their financial viability is their problem and their responsibility. I don’t see any proposals to extort Craigslist, and they’re equally if not more responsible for the situations news companies find themselves in.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/mar/16/rupert-murdoch...
1. Passed a law mandating that companies pay royalties when they link to news articles.
2. Passed a law fining companies if they don't show news articles.
This seems like straightforward trade manipulation. Basically, a tariff cloaked in the language of fines and royalties. Imagine if the US passed a law fining foreign countries if they don't buy John Deere tractors, or rent office space from Trump's properties.
It is staggering corruption at its best - official laws of a country to pay a single person money.
But the issue is news is competing with so much other stuff for our attention and consumers don't really care about where it originally comes from. I pay for multiple newspaper subscriptions but a bunch of my social media is "news" but not from a media outlet. It's commentators I like discussing a story. It's my Aunt posting "Can you believe the mayor is so corrupt". It's hacker news threads. I'm getting enough of the information to feel informed without feeling like I need to go pay for the original reporting.
That's led me to think that more public funding of media, including privately owned publications, would be a good thing. Information is valuable even when the market doesn't recognize it, and I think we're becoming worse off as the public relies on institutions less and less. A tax on algorithmic social media & search to pay for it seems like a better plan than laws that just result in news being blocked
AFAIK both companies provide ways of opting out of this. It's that news organizations want their cake and eat it too by forcing google to give them free traffic (via search results) and charge them for the privilege.
Then why are you paying for subscriptions?
> Amid the news void, Canada Proud and dozens of other partisan pages are rising in popularity on Facebook and Instagram before the election. At the same time, cryptocurrency scams and ads that mimic legitimate news sources have proliferated on the platforms.
> Canada Proud, which also has hundreds of thousands of followers on X and TikTok
> Canada Proud has also bought more than $250,000 in ads on Facebook and Instagram since January, according to Facebook’s ad tracker
I don't see anything whatsoever that shows a potential different outcome had Meta not blocked news sites (2 years ago). This right wing campaign group still would have bought ads, they clearly resonate with many voters (hence their high numbers on other platforms with news) and I'm unconvinced Meta would have shown "legitimate news sources" algorithmically instead.
It's in Meta's best interest to show what creates the most engagement, which is likely whatever infuriates you or you passionately agree with. My guess is Facebook users would have been seeing very similar to what they're currently seeing anyway.
There used to be some accountability in the media-advertising model, but that is largely gone in the era of slop, targeted propaganda and automated rage bait.
bko•9mo ago