Hacker News Reader

Unless I'm misreading, "and are made on a part of the digital platform service that is set up and able to be edited by the registered news business" suggests this only applies to the news agency's own social media pages. I.E. they wouldn't be able to censor comments on links to their content posted by third parties.

> suggests this only applies to the news agency's own social media pages

1.88 seems to indicate that pretty clearly, providing this example:

“In the case of a social media service such as Facebook, this rule deals with the situation where the news business has posted its covered news content on the news business’ own social media page. Comments on the news business’ articles posted by somebody else on another Facebook page are not covered by this law ”

(For context, I'm not trying to be alarmist, merely observe something interesting that I acknowledge I may not fully understand that nobody else was talking about.)

Even that is pretty amazing on its own terms, essentially carving out the new's site on those platforms. Interestingly, I don't see it taking away control from the host, either, so either of them ought to be able to censor. It would be interesting to see a vigorously anti-Facebook article get posted on Facebook, with Facebook nuking everyone supportive of the article and the news site nuking everyone arguing against it. (And both of the nuking the "where are all the comments?" comments.)

Is there someone knowledgeable about Australian law that can explain how the "clarification" stands in relation to the actual law? In the US system, where AFAIK such clarifications would have low priority vs. the actual text of the law, I'd be nervous as a "digital platform provider" relying on the clarification to save me from the text of the law, which to my eyes do not contain that carveout, but under a different system these may be given higher priority.

(& with all due respect to the many fine Internet Lawyers (TM) on HN, International Internet Lawyers (TM) even, I am asking for people who actually know. I can provide myself with all the knowledge-free speculation I need already.)

It's worthwhile noting that the courts have been holding media companies responsible for the comments on their pages which I imagine at least some part of the motivation for this.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/media-companies-liable-f...

Social media content isn't hosted on their property. If they can't comply with such laws they should delete these accounts rather than claim digital squatter's rights.

Isn't Facebook arguing that they have become a public square though? If we accept that argument, then they can't have it both ways - a merchant who has set up a booth on the public common is not a squatter. While subject to the rules of the common, they still retain full control over their booth and wares.

Yes they are, but it’s not entirely up to them. The other side is arguing that they are just a publisher.

It remains to be seen where they end up.

The text you quoted contains the carve-out: the comments must be “made on a part of the digital platform service that is set up and able to be edited by the registered news business.” If the text of a law is ambiguous or obscure, courts can consider extrinsic material, including the explanatory memorandum, in interpreting it: https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/aia190123...

I could also be misreading this, but that caveat seems to apply only to 2(a) and not 2(b) or 2(c). I haven't yet read the surrounding context so it's possible those are further restricted as well, but I don't think 2(a)(ii) applies to the other two sections at least.

2(a)(ii) is picked up by (b) and (c) because they refer to “such comments,” ie. comments as defined in (a).

Ah! Yup, you're right - I misread then.

To be fair most news outlets get their news from news aggregators like Reuters. Hardly any news outlet does its own investigation/News search these days. So what stops Google to do the same and buy its news from a news aggregator instead of showing the Australian news site links and yet not leaving a space for competitors.

I think it was 1 or 2 years ago that one of the news sites were successfully sued for failing to remove hate speech in Facebook comments on a news story they shared. From memory, the judge basically said that if they can’t follow the law on Facebook then they shouldn’t be on it.

>, this gives the news corporations the right to exert complete control over all "comments" on their news articles on these "digital platform services", meaning that, for instance, Hacker News or Reddit, if covered by this law, would no longer be independent sites to discuss news, but would be forcibly placed under the control of the news site.

Using Google search, I don't know if I found the canonical draft but using this pdf[1] as the source, the excerpt says:

>Which digital platforms must participate in the code?

1.29 A digital platform must participate in the code if the Treasurer has made a determination specifying a designated digital platform corporation. The Treasurer may also specify one or more designated digital platform services. [Schedule 1, item 1, section 52C]

1.30 The Government has announced that the code will apply to Facebook and Google. Accordingly, the Treasurer is expected to make an instrument specifying Facebook Inc. and Google LLC as designated digital platform corporations.

1.31 ‘Digital platform’ is not defined in the Bill, but is intended to capture platforms that deliver a wide variety of services such as social media services, search engines and other digital content aggregators.

1.32 A ‘digital platform service’ is a service that is provided by the designated digital platform corporation, either by itself or together with one or more related corporations. A given digital platform will normally provide multiple digital services, such as messaging, search, content curation and other content sharing services.[Schedule 1, item 1, section 52B]

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The way I as a layman read it is... "the law is targeted at giants like Google & Facebook and not Hacker News".

So, HN is spared not because it doesn't meet some strict criteria of what "digital platform is". Instead, HN won't be a target because it's too small to bother with.

[1] https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Exposure%20Draft%20EM%2...

Yes, I should clarify I was not intending to ring the alarm bell as if Hacker News is directly under attack. Most likely HN is completely not subject to Australian jurisdiction, and even if it was, there's no money to squeeze from HN anyhow. I just meant it as an exemplar of a type of site that could be affected.

You're aware of Y Combinator, right? Plenty of money to squeeze from that (roughly $100bn)...

First, Y Combinator has to be in Australia. I don't know if funding a company there would be enough; suspect not. I don't know whether they have funded an Australian company.

And I'm not going to look, because secondly, even if Australia did somehow get its hooks in to HN to some significant degree, and there was no escape, Y Combinator would simply shut down HN. It's nice enough of them to run it as it is, but expecting them to play by these rules to do it is unreasonable. If they were feeling particularly friendly they might spin it off or something. (Turning it into a subscription service is probably feasible at this point, for instance.) Unlike Google or Facebook, HN is not their core business, and shutting off at this point could even be a net gain for quite a few years. The rep gain that HN afforded them is mostly realized now.

There's no way for Australia to squeeze Y Combinator through HN.

It feels like a code smell (law smell?) to name specific corporations in the text of a law. It's the legislative equivalent of hardcoding.

I believe the usual term is a "bill of attainder". The US has a long-standing constitutional prohibition on doing this, though apparently Australia does not.

I think you'll find the US often has lists of corporations and people overseas that US corporations and persons are not allowed to work with/for. The US also has provisions designating companies as of national security importance and other areas.

This draft law allows the relevant government minister (in this case the Treasurer) to designate certain corporations as subject to this law. The corporations have access to the courts to challenge the designation and requirements of "natural justice" have been applied to ministerial actions by the courts.

Facebook and Google aren’t hard-coded into the law. The law applies to “designated digital platform corporations.” The executive government can add or remove companies from the list at “runtime” (without passing a new bill), but the explanatory memorandum linked above says that initially only Facebook and Google will be designated.

Thanks for the clarification, I can see that now after rereading, that makes sense.

> ‘Digital platform’ is not defined in the Bill

This part says that who the bill applies to will be defined later, by the Executive power.

> if the newspaper leans X, they can shut down all the comments from people who lean the other way, or people who disagree with the article

And make no mistake about it - ALL the media in Australia owned by essentially one person, so there is a lot of leaning.

Section 1.89 in the Exposure Draft clarifies this, I think:

> 1.89 In the case of a social media service such as Facebook, this rule deals with the situation where the news business has posted its covered news content on the news business’ own social media page. Comments on the news business’ articles posted by somebody else on another Facebook page are not covered by this law.

If I read this right, they don't need a way to filter comments on a link to their article that someone else posts, just comments underneath one of their own posts. Still not great, but less intrusive than that text you quoted seemed to imply (I couldn't find in that exact wording in your link).

This is probably driven by a precedent set recently in Australia where media organisations were found to be legally responsible for any defamatory comments on their stories in Facebook.

https://www.gtlaw.com.au/insights/nsw-court-appeal-confirms-...

Actually, recently there was a court cases where a news organisation (News Ltd) was sued for defamation because of comments about an article posted to Facebook.

Which is nuts. And which this legislation is trying to, rather ham-handedly, fix. Also, it puts pressure on Facebook, which may actually be the secondary purpose.

At least for HN, because it's not taking money from Australians, I don't think it's a concern. YC can tell the Australians to get bent and there's nothing they can do. Reddit might be more of a concern because it tries to convince people to buy stuff.

It's talking about Twitter, where you post content and Twitter forces other people's comments (retweets/replies) onto the same page as it.