Facebook’s ban on sharing Australian news stories hurting publisher traffic

That's not how the publishers see it.

The publishers see it as people just read the headlines and summary on Facebook, then never ever go to the actual web site to read the story.

It's similar to the way web site owners are unhappy with the way Google scrapes microdata from web sites and presents the information as its own content in those search side panels. It removes an incentive for people to visit the web site that actually created the content.

Facebook and the rest of the doomscrolling industry have trained people to think that "Reading the news" is just scrolling scrolling scrolling, rather than actually going to a publisher's web site to see what's on offer.

FB is not entirely to blame for the position publishers find themselves in, but saying FB gives them free traffic is too generous of a take IMO. FB and others have worked hard to shape the internet as we have it today, where most traffic is centralized in a few “portals” to the rest of the web. Publishers need FB traffic because there’s few other ways to get it, and that dependency on FB is not unintentional.

Anecdotal, but what I see a lot of time is that people don't even read the news being posted - only the title, the preview and the text it was shared with and then jump into commenting. (Pretty much like what I'm doing here now :) ). Actually, I may have even seen a piece of research on this.

So at the end it doesn't seem like it's such a great business for the publishers.

Nobody is denying that it was in publishers' own interest to be linked to on Facebook. Indeed, the law only makes sense that way. Where economics or physics makes something impossible, no law is needed to stop it.

At issue is the power imbalance between Facebook and publishers. the latter is a group of many, who cannot coordinate because of prisoner's dilemma mechanics and maybe even antitrust reasons. The law is supposed to rectify this perceived power imbalance by external enforcement.

A very good contention. Goes to bolster opposition to any link tax.

Note that having to negotiate extra surcharge with news publishers would make online even harder for smaller, independent websites, and (relatively) easier for large platforms. A link tax incentivizes centralization.

And the current excuse of "only large platform" is just that - an excuse, easily changed with a stroke of a legislative pen, once the precedent of link tax is established.

The reasons it is nonsense to own exclusive right to a title

-It hamstrings communication about the work including both criticism and the ordinary business of civilization where we communicate things that we have learned with one another. The title is the only proper referent.

-It never stands in for the work itself unless the work is itself so trivial as to be not worth protection. For example [insert name] died that is all.

There is no reason to suppose one ought to be able to opt in or out of being shared on Facebook than one could opt in or out of being shared in an email or in a coffee shop.

Can you imagine going into starbucks and seeing a list of authors whose works were licensed to be discussed there.

A lot of people confuse there being a handle somewhere with the right to grasp it. Facebook being at a central point in many people's communication could pay the parties being discussed, so could your email provider, or your cellphone carrier.

Any of the above could allow parties to censor your communications at the behest of others like you suggested.

The fact that copyright is so adaptable as to readily be twisted into such ridiculous ideas is a good argument for throwing the whole thing in the trash.

I think this is a slippery slope on copyright enforcement, we have seen it getting ridiculous on YouTube. What if someone shares a screenshot of the article? and if we do this, are we not allowed to write dialogue exchange from movies in social media posts as well?

Can you copyright 10 words? What about 5? 1?

I wouldn't bet that banning news will reduce the noise. Instead I think it will create a vacuum for even worse noise to fill.

I follow ~60 people on FB, most of whom I know IRL. I'm pretty ruthless in unfollowing those that are noisy with memes or other junky stuff.

I'm also conservative with the groups and pages I subscribe to.

You have the controls to curate what goes into your Facebook feed. So the, "So much better," remarks feels like someone flailing around fecklessly when they actually have the power.

Anecdotally I've noticed very little change in my feed since the change here in the Antipodes.

Just look at Twitter.

So yea, it may actually make it better. FB considers "engagement" as all-important. But engagement occurs most frequently when someone sends out a controversial news article. It devalues the service and makes it a less enjoyable experience.

It causes less to be consumed and this is part of New Zealand’s strategy to make the country (tobacco) smoke free. The numbers shown below are a little misleading as the black market increases as the tax rises, as the link notes.

‘The collective impact of the initiatives that make up New Zealand’s tobacco control programme, including tobacco excise tax, is having the desired impact on smoking rates which are trending down. Among Māori, daily smoking prevalence fell from 39.2 percent to 37.7 percent (1.5 percent) between 2006/7 and 2011/12, but during the period of annual tobacco excise increases they fell from 37.7 percent to 31.2 percent in 2017/18 (6.5 percent) –a substantial acceleration in the decrease in prevalence.’

https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/informatio...

That's the main problem for them. They are missing right from the place where people socialize, debate, tag and search. They are hanging from a thread, it's only when people intentionally seek their news that they will get to display them. Maybe that will show how much people care.

Its never been easier to share your perspective online. We are only barely now trying to make it a little harder to share evil and crazy and I think we aren't near done.