— Musings —09.12.2023 07:54 AM
Facebook/Meta are evil
I mean, they all are, in their own unique way, but Facebook/Meta are the worst. People may be trying to save their lives during wildfires, desperate for information, but Zuckerberg doesn’t give a shit about that.
And now it looks it’s their business model.
“Facebook is done with news. First, there was a multiday standoff with the Australian government on news payments, followed by the quiet removal of a revenue-sharing News tab from Facebook in the US. And then came an all-out news link ban in Canada. And now, Meta is killing off the News tab in France, Germany, and the UK, where it is also ending funding for a well-liked local news project. As in Canada and Australia, the change of policy in Europe preempts legislation across the EU as well as the UK that may see the social giant asked to pay for news it shares.
Facebook-owner Meta said this week that it would remove the News tab in all three European countries by December, meaning it will no longer pull in articles to show in the app. Users may well shrug, but it also means the end of payments to the news media taking part. Meta said it would continue to honor existing deals, but would not renew them when they expire—and would not make paid-for news partnerships in the future. “It looks like Meta is pushing the reset button, but very few news organizations are prepared for that,” says Sarah Anne Ganter, an expert in platform regulation and governance at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.”
Unfortunately I think a lot of the problems we have in society today is too many people go to social media for their news which then tends to only be the sources that are acceptable in their information vacuum. Like the Facebook or Instagram app they’ve taken the time to download they can also download news apps who unlike Facebook delivering news is their actual purpose for existence. The news media have only themselves to blame for their pathetic presence in the online realm. They stuck their heads in the sand years ago about where the future was taking them. They accused Facebook and Google of stealing their work by linking to them and when they say sorry we’ll stop they’re accused of endangering Canadians and democracy. This is an absurd attempt at extortion that has rightfully failed. For the record I abhor social media and these companies and do not use them but I also abhor the hypocrisy and laziness of the news media and this Trudeau govt.
Why do people go to social media for their news? We have excellent newspapers like the Calgary Herald, National Post, the Telegraph, the New York Post, the Straits Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Nikkei Review, the South China Morning Post and Bloomberg News.
Gotta disagree with you a bit on this one. If you’re relying on media for your information about emergencies, well that’s your first mistake.
When we got evacuated in the spring, we did not rely on media outlets for our information. We watched the social media pages of the town and county for updates and useful info. So had the news ban been in place at that time, it wouldn’t have impacted us. Even now, with the ban, as I don’t use FB for news, I am completely unaffected by the ban.
Second, I think there needs to be a distinction between reprinting news articles on a Facebook /Google news aggregator and posting links to media sites. If they’re reprinting articles then they should be paying for it so it makes sense they’d look at scrapping it, especially since they can just host links to the original news item for free (at least, for free outside of Canada).
And, finally, it’s very difficult to rely on the media for coverage of this issue as they all have a vested interest in one outcome. Simple links should have never been included in the bill. The feds overplayed their hand and the media pushed the narrative.