Finally, they do something right.
After blocking links to all news content in Australia, Facebook has reportedly “friended” the country again by coming back to the negotiating table, at least according to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. That doesn’t mean that Mark Zuckerberg has dropped his objections to Austrailia’s pending legislation that would force the social media giant to pay for links to Australian news content, however. Neither side seems to be backing down at this point. Australia may not be in this battle alone, though. We’re learning this weekend that Canada is drafting a similar measure and basically daring Facebook to impose a blackout on them as well.
But read it all.
Zuckerberg is a younger version of that megalomaniac Gates.
I don’t see what the objection is. As the article states, if users are posting excerpts and links, what they’re doing is promoting those news sites for free. How could they object to that? If they have a beef with Facebook, it should be for their censorship of conservative comment.
What is this Fakebook you speak of..?
Am I supposed to be cheering that governments are threatening to shake down Zuckerberg on behalf of the corporate-state owned and paid for presstitutes while at the same time governments are calling on social media giants to ramp up the censorship?
What didn’t get reported by Canada’s corporate-state owned propagandists:
Poland threatens hefty fines for social media companies that censor legal speech, users everywhere celebrate
https://www.rt.com/news/510352-poland-free-speech-social-media/
Am I supposed to be cheering that governments are threatening to shake down Zuckerberg on behalf of the corporate-state owned and paid for presstitutes while at the same time governments are calling on social media giants to ramp up the censorship?
Exactly. Those all excited about FaceBook being bashed are missing the point. While a battle between social and legacy media is normally one where you hope both sides lose, in this case it is elites / governments being victorious in ensuring their views prevail.
And quite why FaceBook should pay for links and excerpts isn’t clear. Will Small Dead Animals also be charged?
The issue with Big Tech is not them distributing links for free, it is their blatant censorship.
Why are not governments going anything about that?
Because government is incapable, can you imagine some bureaucrats trying to stay ahead of silicon valley? They need to have a meeting to determine the relevant “stakeholders”, then a committee to define the scope of the problem, a diversity committee to oversee the entire project and make sure the headcounts are right for racial diversity, then they need to ensure there is at least one from each of the letters LBTGQ…LMNOP…QRSU….++. Then after sufficient hundreds of folks have been assigned, establish timelines for detailing the impact studies on each of the diverse groups, and then plan an away conference in a year to review results, in anticipation of taking first steps. By that time, the business model of the tech giants will have changed twice. This massive group of unimpressive people will then produce a report signifying nothing, but it will be full of Liberal ad firm stock photos and be nice and glossy, and will gather dust as the irrelevance that it is. The associated managers will get promotion and performance bonuses for their hard work in seeing this important project through and their two years of hard work.
In short Johan, because they can’t. Government is a collection of people so unimpressive that they can’t be paid to do actual work by the private sector so they gravitate to the “faculty lounge” security of government where discussion counts as work. One smart Google engineer would do more in a week than entire government departments do in a year.
The only thing government is good at (sort of) is collecting taxes, and only because they have the force of law behind it.
They’re also very good at creating new government “Teats” for the bureaucracy to “Suckle”,
with ever increasing union membership.
Perfect!
No, the problem is the organized deplatforming of any competition. Facebook is allowed to do whatever it wants with its own site, just like Kate is. Bills of attainder are illegal; if Facebook has to pay every time it links to a news article, then so will Kate.
Before anyone gets too excited that the government is starting to get something right, keep in mind that the behaviour of government is similar to organized criminal activities where they don’t want to actually be connected to the activities but they will do whatever it takes to get a piece of the action.
The term negotiation is appropriate for what the government wants, however if they where following the mandate given to them by those deplorable voters, they would be pursuing legal action against big tech instead of trying to get a cut.
After watching the JV team handle the NAFTA and FREE TRADE agreements a couple of years age I have absolutely NO faith in any of them. I always thought that the only reason the other G7 leaders allowed our bunch into the sand box with them was for entertainment. It seems I was right…Steve O
Anything that pits government against big tech against the mainstream media is a good thing, in my book. And these tech oligarchies have had free rein for far too long. Time to shake their world a little and like it or not, only governments have the power to do that.
When your rhetoric is indistinguishable from the average Portland anti-capitalist anarchist, it may be time to re-examine your positions.
The average Portland anti-capitalist anarchist puts his pants on one leg at a time. I find myself doing the same. Should I be concerned?
You should be concerned that you think that ridiculous straw man is a valid argument, yes.
Thanks, old fellow, I can sleep easy now.
Many true words are spoken through false teeth. Just because one sounds exactly like a ranting loon does not mean one is wrong. I’ve heard profound and important truths from ranting loons. Yes, it took some filtering, but still.
The social media giants leadership, Zuckerberg, Dempsey, the Wokerian’s, the Branch Covidian Cult members, Democrat Leadership, etc. Are just like the Gadarene Swine, the Biblical Demon Infected Pigs.
Like Demonic infested swine drowning and soon about to be destroyed by their own insanities
So, either facebook will block content links from Canada, restricting the flow of information, or money will be payed to the government’s friends in the media.
Heads I win, tails you lose.
I am not surprised the government is on board.
Social media will be either a cash cow or it will be shut down.
By the way, other than a few favoured industries, that’s how all industries have been treated in Canada.
In fact there has been an increasing trend from cash cow OR shut down, towards cash cow AND shut down.
They already did that during the election, FB prohibited election advertising from Canada.
I yield to no man in my contempt for Zuckerberg.
BUT I believe I’m on the side of Facebook on this one. Kate, government is NEVER right in these kinds of conflicts. They should butt the fork out. Period.
Also, the wailing cry from yourself and many conservatives to “break them up” is actually a rallying cry for more gubmint, which we are purportedly against. The free market will solve this problem in due time.
Agreed. The full-on use of the Interweb and everybody using it all the time is still in its infancy. 15 years ago nobody had a smart phone. The future will be even more volatile and that’s a good thing. Maybe.
The free market will solve this problem in due time.
I’m not hopeful about this. As Mark Steyn said, politics is downstream from culture. The issue is not social media failing to give soi-disant conservatives their free stuff; the problem is large swathes of the modern tech sector marching in ideological lockstep and using their free association rights to refuse service to anyone not part of their ideological tribe. I don’t see any legislative solution to that problem that doesn’t have Unintended Consequences that are far worse. It’s the culture that needs to change; the notion that ostrakismos is not something that’s acceptable to our society.