Google threatens to withdraw search engine from Australia

[rcjordan]

Canada vows to be next country to make Facebook pay for news | CBC News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-next-country-facebook-news-1.5919665

[Brad]

Time to get tough with 'bully' Facebook, UK lawmaker and publishers say
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2AI18I

> Canada, UK

FB so over stepped itself. 

[rcjordan]

^{Good read.}

AU: The Facebook news ban revealed how problematic it is to rely on corporations to provide fundamental public services - ABC News
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-21/when-facebook-banned-news-australia-we-saw-role-it-plays/13175698

[ergophobe]

Good article that find some good people to talk to  - Jaron Lanier, Shoshana Zuboff.

And as I've mentioned a dozen times, it really upsets me that the federal government and Calfire and so on depend on Facebook for this livestreams.

But I suddenly see something else here. I wonder to what extent the gloves finally come off in this fight if the media doesn't profit from being on Facebook and you see more and more reporting like this in Australia. You could see it cynically (revenge) or, well, cynically (they were afraid to really report on it before).

Like the radical leftist Phil Ochs' intro to his song Love Me I'm a Liberal: "In America, there are many shades of political groups, and one of the shadiest is a group called the liberals. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center when it affects them personally."

[rcjordan]

>rely on corporations to provide fundamental public services

OTOH, govs do such a crappy job on crafting online services.  I've seen dozens upon dozens of howling posts about byzantine state and federal websites for unemployment,  vaccinations, etc.  My own state's vaccination site being one of them.  Clunky *and* clueless comes to mind.

OTOH2, state & local govs want to cut costs by pulling legal notices out of local newspapers, killing one last revenue stream.

[rcjordan]

^{AU blinked?}

Facebook will restore news in Australia after talks with the government - CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/23/tech/facebook-news-australia-media-bargaining-intl-hnk/index.html

[ergophobe]

I love the title on Slate

Australia's Wondrous Time Without News on Facebook Is About to End
https://slate.com/technology/2021/02/australia-facebook-news-deal.html

What was worse: It soon became apparent that many other important pages had been cleared too—including state health departments, just days before Australia was to begin its vaccine rollout....
Others (including me) slammed the government for screwing up the negotiations by making extreme demands and then failing to reach an agreement, in turn screwing over the publishers it was purportedly trying to "help" (not to mention a range of charities, unions, community groups, and sporting organizations).

>> blink

Just under a week later, the ban has been reversed, with an 11th-hour compromise seeing the government agree to fundamentally weaken the code. The change means the government may not apply the code to a company if it can demonstrate it has made a "significant contribution" to the Australian news industry through commercial arrangements, and it must give a platform a month's notice before subjecting it to the code. In other words, Facebook just has to strike some deals, and the government will leave it alone.

In the days that followed, posts about the news ban diminished, but the presence of my Facebook friends did not. A girl I met in Mexico shouted out her partner's 30th; a couple celebrated buying their first home; my cousins in England posed with their kids. I saw profile pictures and memes, thank-yous and babies. It was extremely strange, and extremely wholesome, a reminder that good things were happening in the world, too.

[Brad]

Canada and Australia to coordinate on tech regulation: Ottawa

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/canada-australia-coordinate-tech-regulation-225338412.html

[BoL]

Decent interpretation
https://twitter.com/thejuicemedia/status/1365076419760414720