In a move that sent ripples through the media yesterday, Facebook announced that it was going to put an outright blanket ban on all Australian news sites and links to those news sites being posted on its platform. This was in response to the Federal Government threatening to charge Facebook fees, or to make Facebook pay royalties to Australian companies for the content which they had effectively been freebooting for years - and yes, if 'freebooting' sounds like a ye olde piratey word, it's because it arrrre!
What I find rather interesting about this is the assumption of people that I would be annoyed at a private corporation exacting private power over what they perceive to be a public service (which it isn't). Those same people have also posted things on their pages, demanding either the defunding of the ABC; so I am not sure exactly what they think that a public service is for or what it is.
Facebook is a private entity which is operating what amounts to a private boarding house online. As the landlord, they have to the right to say who stays in their premises; subject to various laws to do with discrimination etc. In a kosmos where everyone is trying to claim the right to do something in all directions, it is easy to forget that it is very hard to force someone else to provide the necessary means to look after your rights.
Granted that the Australian Government definitely does have a moral right to charge Facebook an adequate amount of taxation based upon the monetary benefit and profits that they derive in Australia (which Facebook definitely tries to avoid and in bad faith) but the current Morrison Government is very obviously acting on behalf of their masters at News Corporation who have demanded that they are entitled to the proceeds of that taxation.
Facebook putting up a wall and telling people that they are not allowed inside, looks similar to but not exactly congruous to News Corporation who also put up a paywall and charge people who want to play inside. As a consumer it appears to me to be one amoral anational fascist champion versus another amoral anational fascist champion. Forgive me if I don't care who wins.
Truth be told, I am fine with Facebook operating like a knave, in the light of the current Liberal Government passing legislation and running a screen for their masters at News Corporation. This whole argument is like a couple of drunk men arguing in the apartment above. For the most part I don't really care about the argument and in all honesty, I wish that they'd both move out and leave.
I live in a weird point in time where almost the entirety of print newspapers in Australia are owned by just three groups: News Corporation, Nine Entertainment Co. and SevenWest Media. As far as television goes, as I do not have an aerial that works, then Channels 7, 9, and 10 are practically dead to me. That means that I get the majority of my Australian news either from the ABC or SBS, or from the Sydney Morning Herald.
From an absolutely selfish perspective, Facebook's ban on Australian news sites is entirely unremarkable to me. As I do not get my news via Facebook, their ban is of zero consequence to me. As for the argument that it somehow hurts Australian news gathering, I don't really see that as an issue. Companies like News Corporation who have already pared back their news desks to the bone, and commercial television networks that do very little actual news gathering, probably won't miss the incidental traffic that Facebook may have sent to them. Companies like the ABC and SBS who are real news gathering organisations and who go to the effort of sending out gumshoe reporters to gather the news (how novel) are not bound by the profit motive and as such the loss of Facebook is largely irrelevant.
The other issue is that people who only ever got their news via Facebook, are probably not that actually engaged with the news and are probably more likely to share untruths and falsehoods, either unwittingly or knowingly (let's hear it for mass sweeping generalisations).
What the actions of Facebook do demonstrate is that they could have done something about fake news, deliberate misinformation, and the publication of hate speech on their platform if they wanted to. It took an invasion of the US Capitol Building for Twitter to permanently ban Donald Trump but Facebook have seemed rather acquiescent to people organising such things and in the past they have only bowed to pressure after there have been beheadings on Facebook Live and they had to be told off by the New Zealand Government while the live streaming of the massacre of more than 50 people went on. Death and destruction are fine on Facebook but the second that a government tries to make them pay for the news that they freeboot, that's a different story.
On the other hand, this couldn't have come at a more fortuitous time for the Federal Government as it scrambles to run a deflection after an alleged rape happened within the walls of the parliament building. The incoherent argument that Facebook is evil, is a very welcome distraction and News Corporation is a very friendly partner in the cover up.
As for my experience on Facebook, as a user my algorithmically curated corner of it has been vastly improved; almost immediately. I don't have people sharing Sky News videos and I don't have people sharing videos from the Herald-Sun or Daily Telegraph. It is lovely.
I will continue to get my news from the ABC, SBS, the BBC, NPR, DW, NHK, the Sydney Morning Herald (in dead tree form), Pravda, and Xinhua. The latter two are somewhat odd but what's really odd is that Xinhua is often more truthful than what is on Sky News. The best journalism that we get in Australia is still AM and PM on ABC Radio National (576AM in Sydney) because the ABC still pays people properly to do that one really weird thing that News Corporation doesn't like doing: actual journalism. The ABC is still on the radio and online at the ABC's website; so it's not like I've lost anything at all.
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