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Gerry Patterson. The world's most humble blogger |
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Boo Hoo, Boo Hoo! |
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Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2021 11:24:30 +1100Facebook Takes The "Nuclear Option" |
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Taken from an email on the topic of Facebook's response to the Australian government's "News Media Bargaining Code".
The Murdoch media (and for the most part the other three media giants) have been pumping out propaganda for the fossil industry and the right wing of the Liberal party for decades. All the while crying boo hoo, boo hoo we don't make as much money as we used to out of advertising.
So the government have brought in some legislation, clearly designed to be helpful to that old fossil media cabal (I use the word "fossil" figuratively and metaphorically)... They claimed it was for the benefit of journalism, but did not include any provisions to insure that the organisations who might receive a benefit from said legislation would be required to spend it on journalism (huh?). And in fact if I look at the record of that group over the last two decades it seems to me they have spent far more on gossip lifted from social media and propaganda for their right wing buddies then they have on journalism. Last year they closed down local and regional offices, cut back on the number of local journalists, reduced the AAP to a sad remnant of its former self and gave themselves nice big bonuses to compensate for the stress of managing all of those layoffs and mergers. You can be sure that they will not put any money that they get from Google or Facebook to good use. The strange premise behind the legislation is that Google and Facebook should pay the old fossil media cabal for putting links to them on their platforms. And in fact if it was going to become a case of who paid whom, I would have thought that from a purely commercial point of view (and it seems this government is all about commerce), the traditional fossil media should be paying Google and Facebook for those links ... But maybe it's better not to go there ... By taking this line in regard to commercial interests, the government has shown that they are not really interested in journalism or the public interest. And they never really were.
Now Facebook has responded with the nuclear option ... And the government is crying boo hoo, boo hoo ... Why didn't they negotiate? Actually Josh, they are negotiating and I've got to say it seems like a pretty strong opening move in the negotiations. And right now the ball is clearly in the government's court.
Meanwhile there are many smaller organisations, who weren't going to benefit much from the proposed legislation who have become immediate collateral damage. But they would have been collateral damage anyway since the legislation was designed to prop up the declining traditional large media cabal. And if it has the effect that the government and their mates hoped for, it would assist them in gobbling up the smaller organisations (an exercise that would be funded by payments they wring out of Google and Facebook, thanks to the proposed legislation).
But alas, Facebook has pressed the big red button ...And so now everyone is crying ... Boo hoo, boo hoo ... What about the fake news? And I've gotta say that those big tears are mostly crocodile tears. Is anybody paying attention? Facebook has REMOVED THE FAKE NEWS! ... Why is Josh Frydenburg crying those big wet crocodile tears? Surely this is what they wanted? No more fake news! in fact no more news at all.