If we ever needed more evidence that you need to have a piece of the digital landscape that is yours, where you make the rules, the response of Facebook to the then proposed ‘News Media and Digital Platforms mandatory Bargaining Code’ is it.
This piece of nonsensical legislation, now passed into law, sought to even the bargaining power of legacy media with the two giants in the space, Google and Facebook.
On the surface, a useful idea, but legislating behaviour has never worked in the past, and this attempt will be a dog.
The central claim that Google and Facebook steal content for which they have not paid, while an easy lie to tell, is nonsense. Media chooses to put their content onto Facebook, their choice. The platforms then determine where the posting goes, and who sees it via their constantly evolving algorithms.
No stealing going on there.
On the other hand, legacy media post their stuff because of the reach on offer from the platforms. Hundreds of millions, if not billions of potential views is a tasty lure.
The role played by the platforms is as middleman, a wholesaler of eyeballs, playing both sides of the equation for their own benefit.
On one side, they attract viewers by using the algorithms to deliver content that users like to see, based on their viewing history. That data is a humongous pile of personal information, freely given by us to the eyeball wholesalers to sell to advertisers who want their messages to reach those most likely to transact.
Back ‘in the day’ there was a ‘code’ of editorial independence, and factual reporting, funded by the advertising that flowed to the media owners. That source of revenue dried up as the platforms gained power, and as a result, so did the independence and fact checking dry up, replaced by ‘bait’ tailored for the individual, to chase for news, information, and entertainment. Any pretence of fact went out the window. The more extreme, salacious, and outrageous the better to attract the wandering eyeball.
The ‘bait’ was spread around by the platforms, leading back to the media that choose to ‘publish’ it using primarily Facebook to do so. The media benefited from that trail of crumbs, they got the reach, but still did not have the ability to attract the advertising dollars, that all went to the collectors of the crumbs. As a result, the media, which in this country means the Murdoch and Nine empires, stuck out their hand for help from those to whom they have given lots and lots of support. A quid quo pro for that support, the cost of which will be more junk, salacious nonsense, and sheer fabrication passing as news. Real news, the stuff that effects our lives, is unlikely to get much of a look-in: not enough views.
What of those who have availed themselves of the platforms to engage in some sort of community benefit activity, from local interest groups to really useful things like emergency warnings, information and local news. Do they get any financial assistance? No. Nada. They will now however be able to contribute their data to the algorithms that enables the ad targeting that will exclude them.
Google announced they had set up ‘News Showcase’ that would be curated out of Singapore, and for which they would charge a fee for inclusion. It is unlikely Facebook will not follow such a worthy way to skim a few more advertising dollars. So much for ‘news’. It is perhaps just coincidental that the corporate tax rate in Singapore is considerably less than this country, although that consideration has not been an obstacle in the past, as Australian tax has evolved as almost voluntary to these characters.
I could go on, but risk bursting a valve somewhere.
Suffice to observe that the Government has demonstrated again how firmly they are attached to the teat of Murdoch et al, and buggar common sense, integrity, principle, factual analysis, and the rest of us.
To state the obvious again, you must own your own piece of digital real estate.
Header credit: Huffpost Australia. A confused and surprised treasurer being eyed off by a humanoid
Thanks.
I managed to avoid the expletives, which came readily to mind.
Well said, Allen.