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Comment by lolinder | Hacker News Reader

Someone brought that up the last time this came up on HN. In the explanatory materials, they clarified that (ii) is indeed meant to restrict this to posts on their own Facebook page:

> 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.

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

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That still carves them out a protected niche in what otherwise was an independent service, that in no other case provides that level of autonomy.

If I were in FAANG's place, I'd tell the AU government to get stuffed by turning every response page into a "Tell your government that this bill is ridiculous and we'll be back when it's repealed. So long and thanks for all the fish."

> that in no other case provides that level of autonomy.

I, like all FB users, can delete comments to my own FB posts.

So can media organizations. They just can't pre-moderate the comments.

Where are you seeing a requirement to pre-moderate?

There is no such requirement. But that is the capability they want that they do not currently have. They already have the capability to delete comments, just like you can delete comments on your own posts.

If they want that, why wouldn't they put it in the law? And if they want it but it's not in the law, then why do we care?

Perhaps that's what the draft legislation means by "remove or filter comments"?

Excellent, but why enshrine the ability to do this in law only for sufficiently wealthy media companies? Seems a bit ridiculous, doesn't it?

As opposed to only sufficiently wealthy American technology companies...

Well yes, Facebook has an obvious right to moderate their own platform. News Corp, on the other hand, does not own the Fox News Facebook page.

I'm glad you're not FAANG then. When there's a dispute, you work through it rather than take your bat and ball home.

I hate to use the argument but how well did appeasement work out historically... that’s right it didn’t. When something is stupid and only happening because they have the power to force it. Sometimes the only way to fight it is to fuck off and say “sorry but no, I don’t wish to participate in this farce”

Given how badly Facebook and Twitter screwed up dealing with misinformation and hate speech, I would not in any way be unhappy if they did so.

What makes you think that the news companies will do a better job?

The content that they publish?

Not sure why you are being voted down. The news media, for all their faults, can be sued for defamation and in fact have been sued. They also have editorial policies and a clear method of publishing articles which have inbuilt checks and balances.

Sure, it’s not perfect but unlike Facebook, Google and Twitter, they do have processes in place to handle misinformation and prevent the worst excesses, and if these break down it is very clear who you can sue. Ergo, they can be held accountable.

Wow legislating “your” Facebook page as though it’s property sounds like a slippery slope.

As opposed the the slippery slope that democracies are sliding down all over the world?

I agree that it is challenging, but frankly, given how much evidence there is of bad actors and misinformation on social media sites it has become clear that these corporations will only make choices that drive revenue or revenue related metrics.

I don't know what the right solution is, but it's not twiddling thumbs while foreign owned corporations continue to accumulate control over communications and media.

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