Facebook and the Canadian news media

The Canadian government has legislated that social media like FB and IG compensate the news media for articles that are posted on their platforms. The premise being that the social media companies are benefiting from this relationship. Personally, I think they got it backwards. If anybody should be compensated it's the social media platforms that allow the news media to post pretty much anything it wants. Initially FB said it was going to charge the news media to post on it's platform, but has since found another work around by not allowing people in Canada to see any of the news media posts.

Globe and mail article here.

I found some of the comments from the government to be pretty, um,  interesting.

Thoughts?

It will be reversed once they realize it nukes election season soundbites from being amplified.

The link is behind a paywall. 

Seem kind of short-sighted. FB isn't the one reaping the rewards of having their content spread far and wide. The news companies are. If anything, FB should send them a bill for every click and share generated. 

In reply to Peabody :

Should go both ways. 

I've seen news articles show up on social media two different ways, one I'm ok with, the other I think is screwing the news source.  Keep in mind my comments are for when a random user posts the article, not when the newspaper itself posts it on Twitter or FB.

If I post a link to a news article from a news siteon FB or Twitter and you only see the headline and the first couple of sentences and then get linked to the newspaper website to read the rest, I'm ok with that.

The issue is when someone posts a link to the article and the social media website displays the full article and the reader never gets directed to the news website. FB gets all of the ad money, the news site gets none of it. Sure, the news site is getting exposure, basically free advertising, but that doesn't keep the lights on.

I am a Canadian news junkie. I do not agree with this new law at all. In fact I have a subscription to the glob and mail because social media links kept pushing me there for stories that looked interesting. All the links do really is send you to the original new site so they are claiming to want  to fix a problem that doesn't exist. Mostly I think it's stems from the fact that classic media in Canada is slowly dying, and they are crying for the government to help prop them up. And the easy way of course for government to prop them up without just shoveling tax dollars at them is to find some other business that is making money off news and take some of it. The way the legislation is written, any money that would be raised would go to the federal government to be doled out as they see fit, and being a hard left progressive government they do not see right wing news organizations as fit to be funded so the whole thing is a cynical exercise in graft in my opinion.

The thing that is becoming increasingly clear is that there is absolutely no difference between a video showing the ravings of a random lunatic and a talking head reading the so-called "evening news."  The media have sacrificed their credibility and become propaganda mills.

As far as who owes whom for what, I say screw 'em all.  If you want an unbiased take on some event, you'd better witness it firsthand and draw your own conclusions.  "Social media" is the modern equivalent of the Black Plague.

Toyman! said:

The link is behind a paywall.

Discovering news articles and videos on Facebook and Instagram will soon become a relic of the past, as Meta announced it is officially ending news availability in Canada.

Meta Platforms Inc.

META-Q +1.29%increase

said Tuesday that within a few weeks, it will remove news for all Canadian users of its popular Facebook and Instagram platforms.

In June, the company started running a test that limited news for up to 5 per cent of users, but now it says it is moving out of the testing phase.

“In order to provide clarity to the millions of Canadians and businesses who use our platforms, we are announcing today that we have begun the process of ending news availability permanently in Canada,” said Rachel Curran, head of public policy for Meta Canada. Ms. Curran previously served as a policy adviser for former prime minister Stephen Harper.

That means Canadians will no longer be able to share or view news articles and other content posted by publishers and broadcasters, including international outlets.

News links to articles, reels – which are short-form videos – or stories, which are photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours, are also expected to be affected by the block.

People outside of Canada will not see a change.

Paul Deegan, president of News Media Canada, said this “intemperate” action will harm user experience and devalue the Facebook platform.

“Without access to real fact-based news created by real journalists, Facebook will become far less attractive to users and advertisers,” Mr. Deegan said in a statement. “We expect more and more advertisers and their agencies will begin pulling advertising from the platform in response to this unilateral, undemocratic, and unreasonable move.”

The federal government and some companies have already retaliated by ending advertising with Meta.

Meta said it is defining news content based on how it’s described in the Liberal government’s Online News Act, which became law earlier this summer.

It said the move to block news is a response to the bill, which requires tech giants to enter into agreements that compensate Canadian news outlets for content shared or otherwise repurposed on their platforms.

“For many months, we have been transparent about our concerns with the Online News Act. It is based on the incorrect premise that Meta benefits unfairly from news content shared on our platforms, when the reverse is actually true,” Ms. Curran said.

“News outlets voluntarily share content on Facebook and Instagram to expand their audiences and help their bottom line. In contrast, we know the people using our platforms don’t come to us for news.”

Ottawa has said the law creates a level playing field between online advertising giants and the shrinking news industry.

The federal government has said that since 2008, close to 500 media outlets in 335 communities across Canada have closed, with more than 20,000 journalists losing their jobs, while Google and Meta continue to bring in billions in advertising dollars.

“Google and Facebook earn 80 per cent of all digital advertising revenue in Canada. Meanwhile, hundreds of newsrooms have closed,” Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a statement.

“A free and independent press is fundamental to our democracy, and Canadians expect tech giants to follow the law in our country.”

In its own statement, CBC/Radio-Canada said Meta’s move means that people who have come to rely on the platforms for news are now “left with only unverified sources in their feeds.”

The public broadcaster said the company’s decision is “irresponsible and an abuse of their market power,” adding that it and other Canadian media organizations are urging Meta to come to the negotiating table and compensate them for news content.

The Online News Act will come into effect by the end of the year, as the Liberal government develops regulations – a process Meta has said it is not interested in being a part of.

“In the future, we hope the Canadian government will recognize the value we already provide the news industry and consider a policy response that upholds the principles of a free and open internet, champions diversity and innovation and reflects the interests of the entire Canadian media landscape,” Ms. Curran said.

Peabody said:

 

 

“Without access to real fact-based news created by real journalists, Facebook will become far less attractive to users and advertisers,” Mr. Deegan said in a statement.

I literally LOL'ed. 

In reply to Peabody :

I'm not sure what they expected. The advertisers and news outlets need FB more than FB needs them. Even if they cost FB all the revenue generated in the entire country that's $4b against $117b. That tail isn't big enough to wag the dog much. 

Any advertiser that bails and all of the news companies will see the loss long before FB does. When their website traffic drops by significant percentages, they will be begging FB to come back. 

I guess they can always run off to Twitter or the Orange guys version of it. 

I think the news industry is in the same position as writers and song writers: "The greatest fear is that nobody wants to steal your work"

In reply to NOHOME :

Exactly, and FB just answered that question for them.

They aren't bringing anything to the game but they still want something for showing up. 

Social media only benefits the news outlets if they're redirecting readers. If they're lifting enough content so readers don't have to go to the news outlet, they're actively taking readers away. Which is really happening? Remember, the social media company isn't actually creating anything. Someone's got to write those stories.

iosman123, you're using social media for advertising and you're seeing it as a benefit instead of a cost. That means you view yourself as being in the second stage of the social media relationship. Paraphrased from Doctorow:

Stage 1: the platform is tuned to be useful/engaging, pulling in users so that the platform becomes part of their lives
Stage 2: the users are locked in, so the platform sells users to advertisers and it becomes crucial to the advertiser
Stage 3: the advertisers are locked in so the platform just screws everyone over for money

Personally, I've added a network-level block on all domains associated with Facebook as an experiment. You know, there's not much of value that's gone missing. A few memes in the meme thread. Links to FB Marketplace listings. And that's about it.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I think you are looking at it backward. Do news media links generate enough Facebook traffic for Facebook to be willing to pay for them as required by law? Given the ultimatum to either pay for those links or remove them, Facebook removed them, which answers the question. News media had no choice in the matter. 

The next question is will the news sources notice the loss of traffic generated by Facebook. That question hasn't been answered yet. We will probably find out when either the legislation is reversed or the news sources start paying Facebook to push their links. That's when we find out if the tail is wagging the dog. 

So are we all saying the alliance between governments and social media and main stream media is not a net benefit to society?  If we are, I wholeheartedly agree!  

Toyman! said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I think you are looking at it backward. Do news media links generate enough Facebook traffic for Facebook to be willing to pay for them as required by law? Given the ultimatum to either pay for those links or remove them, Facebook removed them, which answers the question. News media had no choice in the matter. 

The next question is will the news sources notice the loss of traffic generated by Facebook. That question hasn't been answered yet. We will probably find out when either the legislation is reversed or the news sources start paying Facebook to push their links. That's when we find out if the tail is wagging the dog. 

Right, Facebook feels the news outlets need them more than vice versa. It's a game of chicken. FB wants content without having to pay for it - or even better, to get paid. They've inserted themselves in between readers and the content creators, and now they're holding that connection for ransom.

There's no alliance here that involves the government and "main stream media" and social media. It's just plain predatory business practices.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

It involved government when the media outlets brought the government into it. That's more predatory than anything FB did. The media outlets could have easily blocked any links to FB. Instead, they decided to try and take what they really didn't earn using the government's gun. Unfortunately for them, FB was playing a different game, blocked all of the links for them, and called their bluff. People will still post news, just without links. They will do what we do when there is an article behind a paywall. Strip the text and post it anyway. 

If FB, the company, was generating content using media links without payment, I could see where the media would have a leg to stand on. As it is, I don't think they do. The content isn't generated by the platform, it's generated by the people using the platform. 

As you said it's a game of chicken. It will be interesting to find out where it goes from here. I have my guesses and I'm betting the whole matter quietly goes away. 

Where we disagree is the source of the content. If the CBC publishes an article and FB serves that up to people in a way that readers don't need to follow a link to get the content, that's a long term problem for content creation and actual professional journalism. We're not talking about amateur content like what happened at the beer league hockey game last night, but primary source reporting on things like major fires causing evacuations of the biggest city in the NWT. That sort of reporting costs money unless you're just going to reprint press releases, and with FB using the results of that work, making money off it and affecting the ability of the news sources to recoup their costs - you lose independent reporting.

Keith Tanner said:

Where we disagree is the source of the content. If the CBC publishes an article and FB serves that up to people in a way that readers don't need to follow a link to get the content, that's a long term problem for content creation and actual professional journalism. We're not talking about amateur content like what happened at the beer league hockey game last night, but primary source reporting on things like major fires causing evacuations of the biggest city in the NWT. That sort of reporting costs money unless you're just going to reprint press releases, and with FB using the results of that work, making money off it and affecting the ability of the news sources to recoup their costs - you lose independent reporting.

Facebook cannot poach content unless the owner agrees to the poaching. Some news sites do a very poor job of protecting their content. If it's good and it's free I am going to read the free version. 

In reply to Keith Tanner:

Maybe things are done differently in Canada, but as someone who checks FB a couple of times a day, I haven't seen what you are suggesting. All news links are just that. Links to outside web pages that can be followed or not. The only time I have seen news as a body of text is if it was copied by the poster and pasted into their post. 

A quick scroll down my FB feed netted me 5 new articles. 3 from local news outlets, one from a Chicago TV station, and one shared link to a WSJ article. 

4 of the 5 were suggested by FB meaning the news outlets paid FB to insert them into my feed. The WSJ link was just a link in a post. None of the articles were readable without going to the outlet's website. The 4 paid suggestions were a headline and a photo. The WSJ link was just that, a link to an article that was behind their paywall. 

Just the fact that 3 local new outlets are paying FB to advertise in my feed, suggests to me that Canada has come down on the wrong side of this and their news outlets will regret it. 

As to independent reporting, it's been gone for years. 99% of them have an agenda. They aren't in it for the truth. They are in it for the ratings and subscriptions. That's it. 

This should be good for a laugh. Independent? Right... This was aired on 40% of the televised news shows across the US and included CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox outlets. All owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. 

As a Canadian, I can say I can say that I do not use facebook as a 'news' source. I've maybe clicked a link to a news article from the local newspapers 'Hey, this person(who I probably know/ went to school with) did a thing!' which said person I probably know has shared it and also said 'Look, I got recognition for a thing' so losing that sucks. But maybe I am not the femographic that needs to ingest all the news all the time.

My use of facebook has dwindled down a fair bit to mostly seeing pictures from car events I was unable to attend due to work, which just makes me grumpy because I was at another stupid wedding vs going out and enjoying my life and hanging out with people so I am doing even less of that. 

I was using "independent reporting" as meaning "reporting that is not just repeating press releases". Sure, it'll have some bias - every journalist and media outlet ever has brought some bias to the table. But you're assuming that all news is political. The example I gave - wildfire evacuations of a major city - is not political. 

Until I shut it down, my FB feed seemed to consist purely of ads and posts from FB groups that typically covered questions that had been answered years before on the user forums that had been decimated by FB. Mostly ads. I don't recall ever seeing any actual news unless it was updates from the local fire district.

(I'm not obsessed with fire, but it is an important thing to know in CO. The skies are smoky right now due to a huge intentional burn)

In reply to Keith Tanner :

It will be.

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/28/1202435016/hawaiis-power-companies-face-questions-in-congress-on-deadly-maui-fire

We are entering the worst news cycle. Until November 5th, 2024 all reporting will be political.