this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Does your employer pay you by paying taxes and then government distributes them to you? If there was a real business here, then an arrangement would be made between Facebook and these news organizations. Facebook wouldn't want to lose out on the profit so they'd pay news agencies for the content. But the truth this, the news agencies are profiting far more than Facebook is from this arrangement. They literally need the government to step in because there is no actual business here.
The news agencies can absolutely pull out of Facebook. They can opt out of summaries and photos. But they don't.
Eh...
Universal healthcare, roads, free education...
My employer pays taxes and I profit from it.
You think an arrangement could be made by individual news agencies where the freaking government couldn't? Meta would have just blocked them one by one instead of all at once.
News agencies don't profit because people don't click and they actually lose profit because these companies are responsible for people losing faith in traditional media by intentionally pushing disinformation because fear and hate increases engagement and they don't care about the consequences.
That's not what I mean and you know it. Your employer pays you directly for your services because it's a benefit to them. Which is basically how all commerce works.
No. I think the government has to force this business arrangement because it's completely backwards. Media companies benefit from linking (they'd literally have no traffic if they didn't) and they're trying to extract some value where none exists.
And stores won't profit if people don't buy stuff. And streaming services don't profit if nobody subscribes. That's life. If, as a media company, you've giving up all your value by providing summaries and images then that's your problem. If Tim Hortons can't sell any donuts because they give out a free Timbit and a shot of coffee, it is not for the government to fix that. They should just stop doing it.
So Meta would pay for the service media companies provide then, glad we agree, don't know why you're arguing then.
The government is forcing the arrangement, the companies decided to just pull out if they had to pay their fair share.
Media companies lost traffic because of social media but they bring traffic to social media. If they don't provide summaries or images then they won't get promoted. See what's happening? You're arguing in favor of letting US private companies control the financing and promotion of Canadian media.
You realise you're defending companies that together make trillions yet pay next to nothing in taxes in their own country (and pay nothing in Canada)?
Media companies should pay Meta for the service they provide. It's literally advertising. Media companies post this material themselves. But if media companies are providing a service that's worth paying for then they should simply withhold that service until Meta pays. That's how the free market works. Tim Hortons doesn't give out free donuts and then go to the government and force you to pay for them if you take one. No, you just buy the damn donut if it's worth buying.
If Meta benefited from this arrangement they'd pay. Is Lemmy also morally responsible to pay media companies because there is a link to this article with a summary?
Media companies lost traffic because the Internet invalidates their business model. Linking is the only thing they have left -- they should be thankful for it.
Just because someone is an asshole doesn't mean they're entitled to less justice. If something is wrong, it's wrong for everyone.
"Media companies post this material themselves."
Didn't know that when I share an article from Radio-Canada I'm acting in their name 🤔
"Is Lemmy also morally responsible to pay media companies because there is a link to this article with a summary? "
If it becomes profitable for the instance's owner then yes.
"Media companies lost traffic because the Internet invalidates their business model. "
It doesn't because without social media you would still need to check articles on their website instead of just scanning a summary and some pictures in 5 seconds. I'm old enough to have been on the internet before any social medias as we imagine them today and new corps didn't mind it back then because people actually had to go on their website to see news, they would read the journal online instead of reading it in paper form, that's all, now people read snippets on Facebook and don't check the source or the physical version.
You're arguing for the destruction of the web at this point. Freely linking to content is the backbone of the whole thing.
You're basically saying that actual journalism itself has no value -- if a 2 line summary and single picture is the entire value to someone then why is anyone paying for this? An AI can make that for free. I could be a journalist if all the value is a summary and picture. You're making such a twisted argument with this whole idea that people just read the summary, never click the article, and somehow somebody needs to make money from the article that nobody reads. Media companies provide the summary and pictures to Facebook so that they'll click on the article in the first place.
The destruction of the web... As if the web was social medias 🙄 If the web can't survive the disappearance of Facebook and article summaries then I don't want to use it anymore.
Sure, I'm the one arguing for news corporations to be compensated for the content they provide but I believe journalism has no value 🙄
Go check how much time people spend on each item on their feed on Facebook and how much time they spend on average on a web page vs just on Facebook every day and tell me again how Facebook is bringing traffic to traditional media!
Social media is just as part of the web as anything. Trying to carve out some exception for Facebook because you don't like them is not a logical argument. What about Wikipedia? Reddit? Lemmy? Digg? Google?
Please provide the receipts, then.
If people have to pay for links, how is that going to provide more traffic to traditional media? Isn't that the whole point of links... to provide traffic.
Facebook thinks people will spend just as much time on Facebook without news links. This whole law is pointless. It's trying to create a market for "links" that doesn't exist. Again, if media companies don't want to provide summaries and images to Facebook they can do that. Instead, all the major news papers in Canada put tags specifically for Facebook to use with their content. They want those links. So makes it valuable to them, not the other way around.
If all you just want to take money from Facebook and give it Canadian media companies, why not just make a law that does that.
"people have to pay for links"
Now it's people that have to pay? What?
You know what's funny, you keep saying "It will be bad for media companies because it brings them clicks" but show me media companies complaining about the law then! Funny that, they don't!
La Presse's director even have an interview where he said "If they block our links then so be it, it's just sad that those who only inform themselves on social media will be losing on reliable information."
Man, that's the reaction of someone who fears he might lose money!
"If all you just want to take money from Facebook and give it Canadian media companies, why not just make a law that does that."
Let me present to you Bill C18!
Ok. So Facebook doesn't care and the media companies don't care. I guess we'll see who blinks first.
If we look at history then...
It will be Meta and Alphabet.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/australia-says-law-making-facebook-google-pay-news-has-worked-2022-12-02/
They'll come back with their tail between their leg and say they're ready to negotiate if the law can be modified a bit and in the end they'll pay for Canadian news just like they already do with Australian news.
If all that is needed to happen is that media companies withhold their content for Meta to capitulate then they could have done that. We don't need a law for that.
Looks much better to be able to say "We tried to negotiate, they didn't want to. The government tried to negotiate, they didn't want to. The government passed a law to force them to negotiate, they left the table and blocked us. We took all the reasonable steps and they are the ones who are unreasonable."
Anyway, what about smaller medias? You think Facebook would beg a local journal for a rural community to come back? As if.
You know that the Australian law doesn't even apply to smaller medias right? It's unsurprising that a law basically written by Rupert Murdoch would include requirements that media companies have to be a certain size in order to eligible.
So? Canada needs to negotiate the same deal is what you're saying?