The kind of single-sided crap with no rigor, no verification, source "my ass" we get these days I feel like it was journalism that invented hallucinations on AI.
The point is that just because you made something of value doesn't mean you should get paid for it, and indeed modern tech is built on the non-compensated valuable labour of techies. Similarly just because you write an article doesn't mean you deserve to get paid for it, certainly not by extorting money from tech companies who get _their_ money fair and square.
They don't need tech companies to distribute their news; they have websites and apps that people can and do visit directly. It's just that people who actually want to read news is a minority, and they'd also like the eyeballs of doomscrollers.
> Online News Act (Bill C-18) in June 2023. The law was designed to make large digital platforms compensate Canadian news organizations when news content was made available through their services. It created a bargaining/arbitration framework rather than literally setting a per-link tax.
> So beginning in August 2023, Meta blocked news on both Facebook and Instagram in Canada. Canadians could no longer view or share links/content from Canadian or foreign news organizations on those platforms... As of 2026, the Canadian government still describes Meta as blocking news sharing on Facebook and Instagram
Pretty much the worst result for everyone. Newspapers get less traffic, can't use social media even if they wanted to. Inconvenience to users. Meta mostly unaffected, maybe some marginal loss in time spent on the platform.
These kinds of things eventually just face reality. Meta and Google know very well how much these things are worth to them in terms of marginal revenue or network value. And the answer is not what publishers want to hear.
>Newspapers get less traffic, can't use social media even if they wanted to
Newspapers want to sell subscriptions for their local area, on paper or on their WEB site. I would say getting clicks from non-subscribers has no value for them.
Finding the right people. A small subset of the general audience.
Trying to get your word in front of all eyeballs in the hope of hitting the right ones at the right time is a hopeful strategy, not a well-considered one.
The article doesn't link to the text of the law, but from what the article says the law will make it mandatory for Facebook to enter into agreements with news outlets, whether they want to or not (otherwise they'll be ""fined"" millions of AUD)
A sovereign nation is just that, sovereign. What it decides isn't an agreement.
You may not want to obey the posted speed limits or pay something the law demands, but that's not about a contract you sign or don't, it's a decision made by a sovereign nation.
Meta will have the option of not posting links to Australian media. But if it does post that, the law applies, and "agreement" is irrelevant.
So the reality they must face is that the social media giants will try to circumvent regulation.
Fine. And the most reasonable response to that is therefore to implement some form of general anti-avoidance rule, of the sort that's used in, for example, tax, company, and employment law.
For instance, you could say that if a social media company were to change its behaviour to avoid a law of this sort then they should incur a charge equivalent to, say, 10% of its global revenue. That ought to make compliance with the law the more attractive option.
There's no reason to be defeatist about this - there is no reason why social media should always be able to avoid effective regulation.
The law says that they have to compensate the news organizations when links to those news articles are shared on their platform. They are completely in compliance with the law because they're preventing those links from being shared on the platform.
This is in no way circumventing regulation. It's following it, the same way Anthropic is following copyright law by shredding books after they scan them. They're just doing what the courts said.
What I don't get is when people make rules with a particular outcome in mind, but don't reason through the incentives the rule creates.
For what it's worth, I'm thrilled that you can't post news links on Facebook and Instagram in Canada. The fewer people that visit those platforms, the better!
> A tax on any advertising appearing alongside text information
Interesting. Are you imagining classified ads would be impacted? What does "alongside" mean, in this context?
It would be easy for Google, Facebook, and Instagram to remove ads on posts that carried news information. Having a tax on any ad alongside text might incentivize them to move to photos and video.
Yeah, there’s no chance that the response to such a law would be for them to immediately shut down all Australian operations, block all connections from Australia, immediately lay off every Australian citizen working for them, and essentially evacuate the country.
It's amusing, in a shameful, 'typical government' rubbing all it's brain cells together to come up with the answer they were lobbied to come up with by the status quo of their era, way.
Of all the things they could throw at the tech giants, they choose this?
Fucking SMH (not Sydney Morning Herald in this case, although related).
Dismantle the collection of data. Enforce advertising standards and rules. Either of those things would benefit humanity.
This? This is Weekend At Bernie's; one last party with the corpse of a dead old man.
Fucks sake. Dumb cunts will retire to their gold plated mansions in the middle of dystopia.
The theory that these online platforms are stealing value from the news companies is thoroughly disproven by the fact that they would rather ban news from their platform than make the payments. This is a government shakedown and nothing more. If local news is worth funding publicly then it should be done properly out of a general tax on the public like other public programs.
Does anybody know if that is enough for them to care? Surely they should be paying 30% tax on profit (not revenue above) regardless. Of cause I assume they use tax havens to avoid paying Australia tax.
It would be very difficult to enforce, but a mechanism to force scrapers to pay would probably be more effective than this. The social media sites can live without local news. Web search and LLM providers cannot live without new data and up-to-date information about the world.
> Proceeds from the scheme would be directed to local Australian news outlets
If this is anything like the last similar law Australia passed, this is SEVERELY glossing over the details.
Because of size and criteria, only one “local Australian” news outlet got the money the Australian government collected.
They were all owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Oh yes, Australia has a current law whereby Facebook pay the government, and they give 100% of it directly to Murdoch, one of the richest and most powerful people in the world.
The government already runs a 24/7 news station as well as 2 primetime news shows and accompanying websites, radio programs, etc. Why it needs to intervene to prop up the private news media is beyond me. But at least if the funding comes from 'agreements' with Google and FB it is a bit more at arm's reach from the government.
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[ 0.32 ms ] story [ 57.6 ms ] threadNews writers are in a supplicant position. They need the tech giants to disseminate their new way more than the tech giants need them.
By nature, it's a very asymmetrical relationship.
> Online News Act (Bill C-18) in June 2023. The law was designed to make large digital platforms compensate Canadian news organizations when news content was made available through their services. It created a bargaining/arbitration framework rather than literally setting a per-link tax.
> So beginning in August 2023, Meta blocked news on both Facebook and Instagram in Canada. Canadians could no longer view or share links/content from Canadian or foreign news organizations on those platforms... As of 2026, the Canadian government still describes Meta as blocking news sharing on Facebook and Instagram
Pretty much the worst result for everyone. Newspapers get less traffic, can't use social media even if they wanted to. Inconvenience to users. Meta mostly unaffected, maybe some marginal loss in time spent on the platform.
These kinds of things eventually just face reality. Meta and Google know very well how much these things are worth to them in terms of marginal revenue or network value. And the answer is not what publishers want to hear.
https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2024/05/the-behind-the-scenes-bi...
Newspapers want to sell subscriptions for their local area, on paper or on their WEB site. I would say getting clicks from non-subscribers has no value for them.
Trying to get your word in front of all eyeballs in the hope of hitting the right ones at the right time is a hopeful strategy, not a well-considered one.
So the newspaper gets no revenue when non-subscribers view (and perhaps click) ads on the newspaper's web site?
TIL, I guess...
You may not want to obey the posted speed limits or pay something the law demands, but that's not about a contract you sign or don't, it's a decision made by a sovereign nation.
Meta will have the option of not posting links to Australian media. But if it does post that, the law applies, and "agreement" is irrelevant.
Fine. And the most reasonable response to that is therefore to implement some form of general anti-avoidance rule, of the sort that's used in, for example, tax, company, and employment law.
For instance, you could say that if a social media company were to change its behaviour to avoid a law of this sort then they should incur a charge equivalent to, say, 10% of its global revenue. That ought to make compliance with the law the more attractive option.
There's no reason to be defeatist about this - there is no reason why social media should always be able to avoid effective regulation.
They argued that Meta needs them for exposure and that's why they should pay, apparently it's not true and they don't need them.
This is in no way circumventing regulation. It's following it, the same way Anthropic is following copyright law by shredding books after they scan them. They're just doing what the courts said.
What I don't get is when people make rules with a particular outcome in mind, but don't reason through the incentives the rule creates.
For what it's worth, I'm thrilled that you can't post news links on Facebook and Instagram in Canada. The fewer people that visit those platforms, the better!
A tax on any advertising appearing alongside text information (so not video or audio). And then a public service subsidy for local reporting.
Both could be totally technologically neutral.
Interesting. Are you imagining classified ads would be impacted? What does "alongside" mean, in this context?
It would be easy for Google, Facebook, and Instagram to remove ads on posts that carried news information. Having a tax on any ad alongside text might incentivize them to move to photos and video.
TikTok would lobby for this.
Yeah, there’s no chance that the response to such a law would be for them to immediately shut down all Australian operations, block all connections from Australia, immediately lay off every Australian citizen working for them, and essentially evacuate the country.
This is just an extension to 2021. The pigs have come back. They want more gravy.
Of all the things they could throw at the tech giants, they choose this?
Fucking SMH (not Sydney Morning Herald in this case, although related).
Dismantle the collection of data. Enforce advertising standards and rules. Either of those things would benefit humanity.
This? This is Weekend At Bernie's; one last party with the corpse of a dead old man.
Fucks sake. Dumb cunts will retire to their gold plated mansions in the middle of dystopia.
It's probably great for the 3 or 4 largest ones, but the rest?
It looks like a flat 2.5% tax on add revenue.
Likely,the tech giants. will just treat it like that, and not strike any deals, and add it on to the cost of doing business in that country.
Does anybody know if that is enough for them to care? Surely they should be paying 30% tax on profit (not revenue above) regardless. Of cause I assume they use tax havens to avoid paying Australia tax.
If this is anything like the last similar law Australia passed, this is SEVERELY glossing over the details.
Because of size and criteria, only one “local Australian” news outlet got the money the Australian government collected.
They were all owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Oh yes, Australia has a current law whereby Facebook pay the government, and they give 100% of it directly to Murdoch, one of the richest and most powerful people in the world.
Utterly disgusting.