[pawnednow]

Australian government and more specifically Rod sims, the chair of ACCC should get some counselling. Really good counselling. They clearly don't understand how publishing works and have a biased understanding of who is benefitting from this relationship.

However, the entire Australian media has been nothing but puppets controlled by murdoch. The one true less biased source is ABC which has been muddied by constant federal government censorship and budget cuts almost to a point where independent journalism and Australia cannot be spoken in one sentence.

I hope they move forward with this code and I hope that both Google and FB remove news from their site so that newscorp can die quickly. It a shame they are doing this. Come next election I am voting against both SCOMO and the likes.

[hnick]

And the ABC/SBS will not benefit from payments if this goes through. Nor will independents. Only the largest for-profit companies will. The gap ever widens.

I guess the level of science and technological literacy in our government here proves we are truly a representative democracy.

[ryan-allen]

Would that mean that ABC/SBS news would feature on FB/Google and the large companies would not?

[hnick]

I don't think that would be legal.

"Digital platforms must participate in the code if the Treasurer makes a determination specifying that the code would apply to them. The Government has announced that the code would initially apply only to Facebook and Google."

This means they can't pick and choose. They are either a news platform or not. That's why FB is warning us they'd get out of the news game entirely.

https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/draft-...

[ryan-allen]

Thanks for the info, given how Facebook and Google were used for spreading propaganda by various state actors in the recent past, if people were unable to get their news through these platforms, maybe that would be a good thing?

I read this book [0] recently, and I was astounded by how widespread it is around the world. The Duerte chapters are an eye opener.

[0] https://www.amazon.com.au/This-Not-Propaganda-Adventures-Aga...

[hnick]

It could be, but as an incidental side effect I don't think it's a great outcome. The law as suggested is confusing and uncertain and that will have a chilling effect on sharing 'news' while the crazies sharing opinions might not be so shy.

Day 1 for example, it supposedly won't effect Reddit. But if FB/Goog pull out, Reddit will be the next target really quickly. Repeat for anything relevant until it hits something that hurts.

[shortweb3]

Can someone explain why this is beneficial to Murdoch or other organisations? Right now if I perform a search for say ‘coronavirus vaccine Australia’ two government sites come up and 10 news sites. If I then click on a news site they can advertise to me and in the case of the guardian ask for donations in the case of Murdoch ask for subscriptions. If they are removed then how my only choice is to go direct to the site of choice. Especially for Murdoch sites that are hard paywalled I don’t get the benefit?

[pfundstein]

> the entire Australian media has been nothing but puppets controlled by murdoch

You're going a bit heavy on hyperbole there. There's a decent amount of non-murdoch news; ABC, SBS, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, The Conversation, etc.

[stephen_g]

It's actually getting worse and worse. The Age and the Herald, having been sold to Nine are much lower quality than they once were. The Government is putting more and more pressure on the ABC, with constant (effective) funding cuts, and both direct editorial interference or indirect (i.e. threatening more funding cuts because of journalists publishing articles they don't like). With the ABC, this has been going on for years - in 2013, they withheld a detailed analysis of the flaws of the Liberal's NBN plan (which has been proven accurate) by Nick Ross before the election because of pushback from "the Turnbull camp", and then eventually he was made redundant because of pressure from the Government. Last year, emails were leaked of the chairman saying they needed to "get rid of Emma Alberici and Andrew Probyn because the Government hates them and they put our funding at risk" - for Alberici because she wrote some articles that got a lot of traction while the Government was trying to push big company tax cuts, pointing out that tax cuts haven't historically correlated with increased economic growth or employment growth (this is true). Last month, Emma Alberici was made redundant...

[ludston]

That's not even mentioning that the chairman of 9News is former treasurer of the conservative party which Murdoch is backing.

[Wolfenstein98k]

Alberici was caught making egregious errors and was heavily biased. She couldn't even tell that MYOB is a software company, instead calling them an insurance company IIRC.

Her claims that all corporate losses are profit-shifting was similarly egregious.

She deserved to lose her position, she was campaigning for one side and lying to do so.

I don't say this lightly - go look at the investigation into her piece and why it was taken down.

[RileyJames]

TheAge has gone to sh*t. It’s basically a collection of government press releases now. I’d been noticing just though reading it, and then their own journalists made the same point. It had become pretty blatant.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/14/journalists-at...

[tomhoward]

To be fair, The Age has long been in a state of derangement through having to compete for its traditional audience with both the (state-funded) ABC and The (trust-funded) Guardian, as well as smaller outlets like The Saturday Paper, Crikey, etc, whilst having lost much of the classifieds revenue that used to fund the formidable investigative, political and business reporting on which it built its proud reputation.

It hasn't been a decent publication for at least 12-15 years, and has long sought to attract eyeballs by stooping to BuzzFeed-style clickbait.

The Nine merger is an attempt to restore it to the position it used to hold in the market, but sadly the world has changed too much for that to be possible, so it's just gone from one kind of trash to another, it would seem.

It's a shame, I have great nostalgia for what it used to be in my early adulthood of the late 90s/early 2000s.

[wavesquid]

The Age and SMH (as well as Nine) are owned by the same company, which is chaired by Peter Costello. Though non-Murdoch, it's rare to see anything non-friendly to the Liberal party on there.

[scoopertrooper]

You mean aside from these articles published over the past few days?

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/icac-to-investigate-corr...

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/who-is-richard-colbe...

https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-law-to-deprive-immigration...

https://www.smh.com.au/national/morrison-s-china-decree-reek...

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/how-good-are-the-pro...

[smcleod]

Yeah they exist and most of them are good (certainly a lot better at least) but it's not what the mainstream majority of "Aussies" read and they don't have the advertising power or control of the Murdoch press here.

[mickael-kerjean]

"Sydney Morning Herald" publishes articles written by people you'd think are journalists but are climate deniers working in the "Institute of public affairs" think tank [1][2]. Back when a tsunami hit the coast of Indonesia in 2018, the death toll was growing over the days and Sydney Morning Herald was giving the numbers from a few days back in a tinny article about halfhway through the newspaper with the frontpage news telling the story of a deer accident on a NSW road. Sydney Morning Herald is the worst mainstream newspaper I've seen in a non communist country.

[1] https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/budget-tax-cuts-prom.... - there's a long list of articles written by people working in the "institute of public affair" think tank both in smh and other outlets like theaustralian and more.

[2] https://ipa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IPA-Report-Why...

[paxys]

Most of them are specifically excluded from this legislation.

[pfundstein]

Yeah, I know. I'm not trying to defend it or "News" Corp.

[vermilingua]

FWIW, the ABC and SBS both depend on government funding, and so are far from independent; before even factoring in the Murdoch-Liberal Party relationship.

[aussieguy1234]

Without Google News or news on FB, people will probably go for free news sources like abc, SBS, the guardian etc rather than the conservative media like The Australian and Daily Telegraph which by and large charges subscription fees for content.

Counter productive to what the conservative govt probably hoped to achieve politically

[hnzix]

This could actually de-weaponize FB. I quit FB when it degenerated into people arguing over news articles. Maybe now they’ll be less angry and discuss broader topics.

[prawn]

IMO, they won't. FB will remain weaponised, but the news sources willing to play ball (often more extreme sources) will hold sway and increase influence.

[umvi]

Why wouldn't the Australian government just make another law making it illegal for Facebook to block sharing of news on Facebook. If you throw enough laws at something, surely you'll get the desired outcome eventually (wealth redistribution from Facebook => struggling newspapers)?

[dicomdan]

It's not unlikely that Facebook will pull out of Australia for such follow up law, and US will retaliate against Australia economically for driving Facebook out.

[gizmonty]

Oh how wonderful it would be if Facebook were to pull out of Australia.

[akst]

The bar would have to be incredibly low for the US to retaliate against Australia over this specifically, seeing as Australia is an incredibly strategic pattern to the US in the Asia pacific region, especially with China being a far greater existential threat to the US economy verses Facebook leaving the Australian market.

Edit: Keep in mind we're talking hypotheticals, Facebook only said it would stop sharing news articles.

The most extreme thing that will end up happening will be a US diplomat reaching out to Australia on behalf of Facebook.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

As nations, we contain multitudes. The US fights Canada r.e. lumber, but at the same time cooperates across a broad range of other aspects of international relations. Australia being a strategic partner in many respects does not preclude trade disputes when it comes to their laws as they impact Facebook.

[akst]

I'm not suggesting allied nations cannot have disagreements & voice them with each other, I'm saying it's unlikely for the US to "retaliate" against Australia like this, when something like this can be better resolved with peaceful cooperative diplomacy.

Again, in this case we're talking hypotheticals with Facebook pulling out of Australia, as they've only said they would stop showing news. It's not like Facebook would suddenly be unable to sustain operations in Australia because users cannot share news articles. If anything they're just playing politics to get a better deal for themselves.

If Facebook left Australia, I would because they choose to, not because they were forced to, just like no one is forcing Google to either.

[brokenmachine]

Would the US really care about Facebook's concerns? Why?

[Polylactic_acid]

Unlikely because newscorp controls the government in both Australia and the US

[vermilingua]

It doesn’t control either government, but they have the kind of symbiotic relationship that makes favours indistinguishable from control.

[waheoo]

ABC are compromised, they only ever hard ball interview the opposition, which is completely fucking useless. (They're not in power)

Just look at any liberal interview vs any Labor interview. Labor gets questions, liberal gets pleasentaries.

[waheoo]

Don't know why being downvoted. This is as if fox news was govt funded.

[jakecopp]

I encourage everyone to have a read of the actual draft legislation along with hearing Facebook's reaction to new regulations being imposed on them.

The actual legislation sounds well thought out to me: https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/digital-platforms/news-m...

The FAQs: https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/DPB%20-%20Draft%20news%...

See also the ACCC response to Google's open letter, which contained misinformation: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/response-to-google-ope...

[themacguffinman]

Stratechery quotes and rebuts the official sources you linked. It's hard for me to imagine a more poorly thought out legislation. [1]

It completely unfairly favor news orgs over the rest of the web, it gives publishers extensive control of user discussion about content that they own which is an affront to the principle of free speech, the terms of the forced binding arbitration are incredibly vague and, well, arbitrary.

The ACCC response is also nonsense.

> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so.

Google's letter didn't mention anything about charging Australians for the user of its free services at all. If you actually read the open letter [2], it doesn't even contain the words "charge" or "price" or "cost" or "fee" or imply anything about charging users.

> Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so.

Google never said it had to share "additional user data", whatever that means. It is quite clear in claiming that "Under this law, Google has to tell news media businesses “how they can gain access” to data about your use of our products. There’s no way of knowing if any data handed over would be protected, or how it might be used by news media businesses." [2] which is absolutely true.

The ACCC is responding to fictitious claims. It's the ACCC response that contained misinformation, not Google's open letter.

[1] https://stratechery.com/2020/australias-news-media-bargainin...

[2] https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open...

[eskaytwo]

Speaking as an Australian who has been following this closely, the Stratechery post is the best analysis I have seen of the situation, and cuts through the spin that F and G have put on it. It checks out with the ongoing relationship Murdoch has with the LNP who are in government. I encourage anyone interested in the topic to check out the Stratechery article on it.

[SyneRyder]

> Google's letter didn't mention anything about charging Australians for the user of its free services at all.

It absolutely does. One of the headlines in the open letter was "Hurting the free services that you use", and includes:

... the law is set up to ... encourage them to make enormous and unreasonable demands that would put our free services at risk.

(Edited for brevity and clarity, but you can compare against the original.)

If Google didn't want to give the impression that they would have to start charging, they could have deleted the words "free" and it would still have made sense.

With the "your free services are at risk" messaging, Google was definitely trying to create the fear of a price increase. They didn't say "the quality of your services are at risk".

[1] https://about.google/intl/ALL_au/google-in-australia/an-open...

[themacguffinman]

> They didn't say "the quality of your services are at risk".

I think you missed these clear cut sentences: "The proposed changes are not fair and they mean that Google Search results and YouTube will be worse for you." and "There’s no way of knowing if any data handed over would be protected, or how it might be used by news media businesses." which point to service quality and privacy, not price.

[codys]

The legislation is, honestly, difficult enough to parse that linking it with a non-specific comment ("sounds well thought out") just turns into a tar pit. I can't tell if you have specific agreements or disagreements, and the only approach available to discuss is to basically summarize it or link to it again.

On the ACCC response: it implies google made statements they did not, and seems to willfully ignore the reality of supporting the cost of a free service.

Do you have specific things you think this does or doesn't do? In the future it helps to start with those.

[arthens]

> Google will not be required to charge Australians for the use of its free services such as Google Search and YouTube, unless it chooses to do so.

Yes the law doesn't imply this in any way.

But it requires Google to notify most changes "in terms that are readily comprehensible". What if an algorithm cannot be explained in comprehensible terms (e.g. machine learning)? What if they don't want their teams to be limited to changes that can be explained? What if they don't want to share their internal changes (e.g. they don't want a competitor to know, or they don't want these changes to be a "TODO how to update your site")?

What I'm trying to say is that I don't think it's impossible for a big company to decide to develop a less magic and simpler algorithm for Australia instead. And once you consider how small Australia is (in terms of population, and business opportunity), this might only sense if you combine it with a paid membership.

Note that I'm not saying this will happen, I think it's more likely that big companies will decide to opt out from displaying news or (in extreme cases) opt out from the Australian market completely (if they can't make it work).

> Google will not be required to share any additional user data with Australian news businesses unless it chooses to do so.

IANAL but section 52M(2) seems to contradict this (52M(2)(e) implies Google must make the data available to media companies)

> A healthy news media sector is essential to a well-functioning democracy.

Strongly agree with this, and I'm generally in favour of making sure media companies get their fair share of $$$.

But the idea that government can define which companies deserve an extremely unfair advantages (compared to all other companies, e.g. small media companies), and force google to explain all changes with a 28 days notice... that's just bollocks.

[johnnyYen]

The ACCC response if disingenuous. It fails to mention the requirement that Google and FB must give news entities 28 days of any changes to their ranking algorithm. I mean WTF. It's the most brain dead piece of legislation you could imagine.

[stephen_g]

I think it actually misrepresents Google's statements too - the ACCC response makes it sound like Google are saying they would be required to charge for their services, but Google actually said that the code might make it no longer worthwhile for them to provide their services for free in Australia.

It would have been fair to say that part of Google's statement is probably an exaggeration, but the ACCC instead muddies the waters by rebutting something Google didn't actually say...

[shakna]

This nice and vague part of the legislation sounds like an insurmountable hurdle to me:

> a) a list and explanation of the data that the digital platform service collects (whether or not it shares the data with the registered news business) about the registered news business’ users through their engagement with covered news content made available by the digital platform service;

> c) a list and explanatio nof the data that the digital platform service currently has a practice of making available to registered news businesses;

> e) information about how the registered news business corporation can gain access to the data mentioned in paragraphs (a)and (c).

Google/Facebook may not even have the architecture to supply all that information to begin with. And if they did, this is beyond just analytics. It seems to be requiring the companies hand over what allows them to be competitive at all.