Now That Rupert Murdoch Has Convinced Governments To Force Facebook To Pay For News, Facebook No Longer Wants Anything To Do With News
from the i-mean,-what-else-did-you-expect? dept
This should surprise no one, but Joshua Benton, over at Nieman Lab, has a really fantastically well-reported article about how Facebook basically wants out of the news business entirely. It goes through multiple reasons why this is the case, but a big one is that Rupert Murdoch’s decade-long demands that Facebook and Google simply fork over some cash to news organizations (for sending them traffic) has finally had some modicum of success in Australia, and is now being considered elsewhere around the globe.
As Benton highlights:
The fact that it worked in Australia has inspired other countries to try to do the same. Canada will soon pass a version of Australia’s law. The U.K. will likely do the same, promising “Australia plus plus.” And while I still doubt it will pass, there’s a weaker bill in Congress that’s seeing “new bipartisan interest.”
And, for Facebook, (whose core business has been struggling a lot of late) that’s just one more reason to just ditch news entirely.
But Facebook? Facebook has been trying to wipe the news off its platform for years. Why would it think it should be doling out hundreds of millions of dollars to publishers it is actively trying to squeeze off its feeds?
[…]
So it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s Facebook that plans to just…stop writing checks. It’s hit a little revenue bump and needs to cut costs. It has handed out hundreds of millions of dollars in order to shut up publishers, and now publishers in countries a lot bigger than Australia think they’ve figured out how to force it to hand out more — a lot more. If the checks didn’t work…why keep writing them?
Of course, as Benton notes throughout the article, there are plenty of other reasons for Facebook to abandon the news business entirely. It’s actually not what most people use Facebook for (he has citations to stats that suggest most users don’t even want to use it for news), and Facebook regularly gets blamed for all sorts of stuff, based on how news (and fake news) is shared on the site.
So, getting rid of news entirely kills two birds with one stone. It takes some heat off of Facebook… and it removes the need to pay these massive sums to shut up Murdoch and others.
Of course, that may mean that everyone who’s been hoping that free cash from Facebook would somehow “save the news business” are going to be forced to look elsewhere. Google may still be on the hook, but it’s not like the newer social media networks are likely to care much about news either. I don’t think many people rely on TikTok or Instagram (of course, also owned by Facebook) for news, as both are not even remotely built on links.
Maybe, just maybe, like we’ve been saying since Techdirt’s earliest days, news organizations need to focus on building sustainable business models, not just demanding cash from others who figured out how to give people what they actually want.
Filed Under: australia, link tax, news, rupert murdoch, social media
Companies: facebook, meta
Comments on “Now That Rupert Murdoch Has Convinced Governments To Force Facebook To Pay For News, Facebook No Longer Wants Anything To Do With News”
Bingo
That’s just it. It’s why I have a subscription to Haaretz, the Israeli Journal whose journalism sees Palestinians as human beings. It reflects my values, so I give them money. TechDirt also reflects my values, so I give them money as well.
Mass Market newspapers that try to be everything to everyone don’t make for a good sustainable model.
Re:
That may work up to a point. The thing is, a lot of outlets can ask for subscriptions simply because they have been established for quite some time now. A lot of successful news outlets are successful because they are… already successful.
For newer players, the idea of Facebook simply deleting news can range from a minor bump in the road to a death sentence (it’s a bump in the road for me since I get almost no traffic from Facebook anyway). This regardless if they were for or against link taxes. If Facebook ditches news entirely, that is one less way for smaller players to get their name out there (which is hugely valuable if you are trying to make a name for yourself). This will only encourage other larger players to simply ditch news links entirely which is one less source for smaller players to build an audience in the first place.
This only compounds the problems faced by smaller outlets because social news websites have increasingly only linked to the larger outlets, seemingly because the smaller outlets are “not credible enough” (the contents of the article doesn’t matter).
The overall effect is very familiar to millennials trying to get into the workforce: the rungs in the ladder to success got sawed right off, making it all but impossible to succeed no matter what news you break.
It’s all well and good to have all the right models in place: subscriptions, insider stuff, T-Shirts, donation hat, etc. As long as a potential audience is unable to find you, the best online business model paired with the greatest content imaginable in the world will mean squat.
This is not to say Facebook is making a mistake here. Realizing linking to news sites costs money and axing linking to news sites really was something they should have done right when Australia started pushing this complete and utter nonsense. Link taxes should have never gotten to the point where multiple countries are either contemplating it or actually passing and enforcing it. The question I have is: what the heck do smaller news sites do to gain a bigger following when doors like this are being shut?
Re: Re:
The question I have is: what the heck do smaller news sites do to gain a bigger following when doors like this are being shut?
Agree that driving traffic to the news site is the ‘licence fee’ for hosting ghe link. Simples! 🙂
Re: Re: Re:
And that is why the larger publishers have tried to make it legally impossible to not charge money for links with laws like this, because they know the smaller outlets will make clear that people can link to them for nothing and completely undermine the parasites trying to demand money.
Re: Re: Re:2
Moreover, not carrying news links hurts the smaller competitor news sites far more than it does the established incumbents, which was part of the poimt in making these fraudulent taxes.
Re: Re: Re:3
Almost certainly, they likely see it as a win-win where they either get paid for free traffic or suffer a slight dip in traffic in the short term only to have smaller competitors absolutely devastated long term.
Re: Re: Re:2
Well, if the law makes it so that money has to be charged, the smaller news sites can edge out the big players by charging a peppercorn rent of a cent per year to each site hosting their links. Even with 100 small news sites, that’s still only a dollar per year, which any website should be able to afford.
Re: Re: Re:3
You are overlooking the administrative costs of keeping track of news sites and payments, along with the cost of writing checks, and the associated banking fees payed by a business.
Re: Re: Re:4
You are overlooking the administrative costs of keeping track of news sites and payments…
There’s a bot for that.
…along with the cost of writing checks…
Have you heard of this brand new invention, conceived of in the 1950s by the Bank of America, called electronic banking? Seriously, who wires cheques these days?
…and the associated banking fees [paid] by a business.
Any regular payments, such as a direct debit, don’t incur extra fees the last I heard.
Re: Re: Re:5
Seriously, who wires cheques these days?
*writes
Re: Re: Re:3
Then Rupert Murdoch will require that the law be changed to set a minimum price that must be charged.
Re: Re: Re:4
Which lobbying may finally make legislators sit up and realise exactly what’s happening when a link tax is charged.
Re: Re: Re:5
I suspect they know perfectly well what is happening, and are fine with it as long as they get their lobbying money.
Re: Re: Re:6
If you guys are lucky, maybe some asshole will pretend that Congress is a school, with only Ron Wyden and those who think like him as the survivors. 😉
You needed us more than we needed you…
(shamelessly stolen I forget where and when but this sort of proves this idea has always been with us)
Hey, this golden egg is awesome.
But I bet if we cut the goose open, we could get a second golden egg, and we wouldn’t have to wait for tomorrow.
Frankly, I can’t see any downsides to this plan, and I suggest we implement it immediately.
Gentlemen, sharpen your axes.
Re:
… totally ignoring the fois gras and roasted fowl potential…
Further consolidation
Just like Amazon and the ebook distribution market, like Apple first and then Spotify with the music distribution market, the newspaper industry is handing the news distribution market over to Google for pennies, and it’s far too stupid to see how obvious that is.
The problem is that it used to be, and the news media CEOs of today either came up in that world or were mentored by those that did, so they think such monopolies and monopoly profits are the “Natural Order of Things.”
If the checks didn’t work…
why keep writing them?
Because Facebook didn’t realise that Rupert Murdoch is Danish.
Re: Danish anyone?
Then went to Australia, and took over all the news and TV.
Lives in the USA, while slowly taking over OUR NEWS.
And where does he pay his taxes?
Re: Re:
And where does he pay his taxes?
He hides his money in South Dakota so he doesn’t have to. 😉
Re:
Even if Murdoch were Danish, what would that have to do receiving checks?
Re: Re:
Murdoch’s not Danish, so I have no idea why Bob said that except maybe to imply that Murdoch is a swine (Danish bacon).
Re: Re: Re:
It’s a reference to the Danegeld poem by Rudyard Kipling, or the practice of paying Vikings money to go away. The famous line being: “Once you have paid him the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.”
Appeasement doesn't work? What a surprise
Give an inch and they demanded a mile, who could have seen that coming from an industry that thinks they are owed money from the people sending traffic to them for free?
Nice that Facebook at lease might have caught on that no amount of money will ever be enough for the parasitic publishers, I look forward to future articles where they’ll be screaming about how Facebook removing any links to their stuff is an abuse of power and the government needs to step in and force them to carry and pay for news.
Re: Isn't that what happened in Spain?
Didn’t Spain try something similar?
The news organizations charged Google a “link tax”, Google stopped showing links so they wouldn’t pay the “tax”, and then the news organizations complained about how it wasn’t fair that Google wouldn’t show their links any more. I think the government may have even tried to step in and force Google (a private business) to show and pay for the links.
Re: Force News Carriage
So, next week then?
Mike are you really suggesting that they not be parasites?
I’m not sure there’s any actual incentive for that.
Also: “good”/successful parasites are difficult to remove, and potentially threaten the life of the host if not removed with care.
Re: Incorrect terminology.
Also: “good”/successful parasites are difficult to remove, and potentially threaten the life of the host if not removed with care.
Those are symbiotes, not parasites.
Re: Re:
No. symbiotes are mutually beneficial. A “good” parasite, while harming the host, will make it’s removal as difficult as possible. After all, it needs to leech everything it can off the host. Being removed easily would be bad for the parasite.
I think not being a parasite would be particular hard for some of these groups. That would mean they’d have to stand on their own (specifically, it’d probably mean they’d need to find innovative ways to sustain themselves that do not involve leeching off others)
Re: Re: Re:
I stand corrected.
Re: Re: Re:
I think not being a parasite would be particular hard for some of these groups. That would mean they’d have to stand on their own (specifically, it’d probably mean they’d need to find innovative ways to sustain themselves that do not involve leeching off others)
That’s what makes the whole link tax thing all the more boneheaded, it used to be a symbiotic relationship where the publishers would get free traffic and the platforms/services linking to them would get more people using them in order to find the publisher’s content, yet for some that golden goose is just too tempting to pass up and out come the knives.
Re: Re: Re:
Mutualistic symbiotes are, but other types, including parasitic, are not.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/symbiosis-art-living-together/
Re: Re: Re:
The isopod that eats its host fish’s tongue abd takes its place being an exple of such.
Fun to be had
And what would it take to hire a few people to Publish links to FB, suggesting they are not PART of the News agency.
What is the likelihood they will go after Reddit?
Re:
What is the liklihood that someone will show up in the comments somewhere and ask, “What is the liklihood of x?”, and neversay anything more?
Re: Re:
What is the likelihood that people will just copy/paste entire articles because they can’t link to them? Section 230 says a website isn’t liable for that infringement unless it encouraged it, after all.
Re: Re: Re:
.. said nobpdy who wasn’t deliberately lying sbout Section 230, ever.
Re: Re: Re:2
Every accusation a confession.
Re: Re: Re:2
Actually, AC is right. As long as such material is removed the moment a moderator or whoever learns about it, then the website can’t be held responsible for the infringement as long as it didn’t encourage the posting of the content, thus becoming its publisher. How long have you been on this website?
Re: Re: Re:3
You should read Section 230 sometime. See my reply to your AC sockpuppet sockpuppet. (The one below, not the even-more-obvious one above).
Re: Re: Re:4
You should read Section 230 sometime.
I have. Why haven’t you?
See my reply to your AC sockpuppet sockpuppet.
I don’t have any sockpuppets. Unlike you, I don’t see a need for them.
Re: Re: Re:5
[Hallicinates facts not in evidence once again]
Re: Re: Re:6
Every accusation, a confession.
Re: Re: Re:7
Yes, all yours have been.
Re: Re: Re:8
Said the hypocrite.
Re: Re: Re:2
What did I say that’s a lie? Are you really a regular on this site or just pretending to be one?
Re: Re: Re:3
You lied that copyright infringement is immunised by Section 230, a claim exclusive to ignorant anti-230 trolls because in the real world copyright is explicitly exempted from Section 230 immunity in section (e)(2):
Re: Re: Re:4
You lied that copyright infringement is immunised by Section 230…
You’re the one lying, actually. All I said was the website couldn’t be sued for it. I never said or even implied that the rights holder couldn’t go after the actual infringer. You made that leap all on your own, destroying your argument with a logical fallacy.
Re: Re: Re:5
You made that leap all on your own, destroying your argument with a logical fallacy.
And exposing themselves as a troll.
I think it would be nice if Facebook just listed a no of new Zealand and American news websites, on fb Australia, since the law only applys to Australian news websites, I think it’s wrong and antidemocratic to force a website to pay just to display links, if newspapers want money they can put up pay walls or ask readers to register to read the full article
It seems newspapers are like the 90s music industry before the ipod iTunes was invented
Eg they are doing pointless stupid things to get a few dollars which in random the long run is not a good plan remember the next generation of readers are gen z who are used to getting news for free
Re:
Wrong, they for saw that and wrote the law so that a site either include Aussie news sites and pays, or does not link to any news sites at all. Just linking to foreign sites is not allowed in Australia.
Re: Re: unhelpful
Refusing Strine links is not the solution under the law, as you note. There is no First Amendment there, so the government is largely free to regulate speech.
Refusing registrations and usage from Australia, on the other hand, might avoid entanglement in their law. People attempting to access the site from Down Under would see a page saying ``unavailable in your area” and giving a link to the law for reference.
(they might also include a message saying ``preview still broken without javascript” if they got ambitious)
... or Instagram (of course, also owned by Facebook) for news, as both are *not even remotely built on links*.
Not only is Instagram not built on links. It actively hampers sharing links on it’s service (apart from internal links to accounts and hashtags).
You literally can’t post a URL in a comment or post. (well, you can post the URL, it just won’t turn it into a hyperlink). . Hence the use of the (occasionally pornographic) “link in my bio.” because that’s one of the few places you can add links.
Which is stupid. it devalues the comment sections of posts to fire and heart emojis, and contributes to the proliferation of low-grade content on instagram. Though if you’ve got the likes of News international breathing down your neck demanding rent, I guess it’s understandable 🙁
Instagram is for posting your own personal videos or photos, post links on your fb page.
Tik Tok is the no 1 video app, it has no link s, links are not needed on every app.
British Appeasement Policy all over again.
This is why you never concede to demands. You’d think Google would have learnt something from the history of the UK and France, but nope. They gave in to Australia, and now look what’s happening. (-_Q)
Re:
Australia has taken the Sudentenland and is now rolling on Poland?
Re: Re:
*whooosh*
Re:
While I agree, appeasement during the interwar period was… a complicated matter.
And it was Germany, not Australia. Not that I don’t appreciate the dig at Murdoch.
Re: Re:
Actually, it was more to say, “History repeats itself,” rather than a dig at Murdoch. Nevertheless, your allistic focus on unimportant details caused you to miss the main point: the fact of the recurring pattern.
Moreover, not carrying news links hurts the smaller competitor news sites far more than it does the established incumbents, which was part of the poimt in making these fraudulent taxes.
Re:
This was in reply to That One Guy before the comment system broke.
Re: Re:
Really? Because this site’s coding is fine and doesn’t cause any glitches, according to you.
Re: Re: Re:
… said nobody who’s ever read my comments complaining about the new site’s shitty coding, ever.
Re: Re: Re:2
Said the troll that lied about a clearly code fault-caused double post.
Nothing new
Many years ago there were businesses who gathered and sold public information without payment, making their income by attaching advertising. They were called “newspapers”.
Re:
And their problem with social media and Google is that those have stolen the advertising market from under the newspapers. The newspapers want their advertising revenues back via a link tax.
Re: Re:
And just why do you think that the newspaper business deserves to have advertising money? I mean, how can they “steal” the advertising market?
If advertisers want to take their dollars elsewhere, well, that’s simply called free market capitalism.
Forcing somebody to pay for the newspaper’s inability to shift with changing markets, is just forcing company A to support company B’s poor business planning.
Re: generally speaking
Historically, ``real” newspapers sold subscriptions which provideded a third to a half of their income. Advertising covered the rest.
The problem now is that some people are expecting to get news on a computer screen, rather than in a bunch of dead trees in the driveway. It may be mostly us older guys who want the dead trees every day.
As a result, dead tree sales have fallen, and the newspapers are either cutting costs (e.g. closing out-of-town bureaus) or trying new business hacks (e.g. paywalls on web sites).
Re: Re:
The problem is that paywalls are generally the best way to not get paid if everything’s behind them. There’s this one news website (I forget which) that allows people from an IP address to read five articles a month for free before asking for payment to see anything else. Many people do pay, but the majority of those who don’t are on dynamic IP addresses.
Re:
Well, they can whistle.
Not yet dead
Entire sites are dedicated now to reporting on the slant and bias of reporting. Even academics have approached this:
https://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=637508&p=4462444
News is killing itself by not actually reporting just the news.