The massive Facebook over reaction to being expected to pay providers for news content while predictable was not user friendly. If you're not in Australia you may not have heard that our federal government has just passed a law requiring tech platforms like Google and Facebook to do just that. Google was also not happy but they have already in advance negotiated with media companies. Facebook has not. So although the act is not yet in force - although it is expected to be soon - they have blocked all 'news' pages and links from their platform Australia wide.
For the most part not having news on Facebook doesn't personally affect me. While I do like to share news links with my very small group of Facebook friends - 92 at the last count and only consisting of family and people I actually know and care about - Facebook is not my main source of news. I find their habit of tailoring what information I receive to what they think I'm interested in less than useful so I subscribe to various news sources online and or go directly to our national broadcasters' websites for my information.
For others, though, it is important, often their major source of news, and being blocked would have been inconvenient at the least - but it got worse. Facebook then compounded things by expanding the definition of 'news' and removing all information sources. This included government departments like the Bureau of Meteorology, emergency services which give bushfire and storm warnings - critically important at this time of year when bushfires and cyclones are at their height, State and Federal Health Departments - in the middle of a pandemic when we're about to have a nationwide vaccination roll out and the list goes on. Along with those they blocked the pages of charities, book publishers, small businesses and basically anyone who was trying to promote anything. Many of these were eventually and slowly restored but by no means all are back.
The cost to small businesses which get much of their traffic from their Facebook pages has been high and you have to wonder what exactly Facebook has gained from this. The federal government is showing no signs of blinking, multiple charities and businesses have incurred considerable losses and the chat among most people I know is saying 'let's find another platform'. No doubt they hope we'll forget and just stay with them out of inertia but the anger is real and although as far as Facebook is concerned Australia is a small market there's likely to be a backlash elsewhere with a number of other governments world wide apparently considering similar laws.
I've always known that being on Facebook is not free. The cost is that they mine our data and information and sell it on. That was a cost I was prepared to pay to stay in touch and is why I've kept the personal information they have about me to the bare minimum. Now I'm less accepting of this. If they are willing to do things that put people's lives at risk - yes, I know they say it was a mistake but if they're as clever as they claim, they really shouldn't be that incompetent - I'm reluctant to stay. So I and many others have spent much of the last few days investigating other alternatives - and it turns out there are a quite a few.
Has Facebook done itself serious harm? I don't know. We shall just have to wait and see what the final outcome is but I will be going elsewhere for social media as soon as I've worked out which of the alternatives suits me best.
4 comments:
I don't reckon it was a mistake when facebook cut off all the other government sites, I reckon it was a deliberate act to show the Australian government what might happen.
I doubt it was a mistake, too, Graham, but I don't see the government giving way on this. It's too good a distraction from their other woes.
I am not intimately familiar with the situation in Australia, but it appears to me in a general way that platforms such as Facebook are acquiring far too much power, even over elected governments. I do not use Facebook so whatever they have done would not affect me. Seems like a mass boycott by Australians is called for. Has that even been considered, or are people so addicted to Facebook they can't bear to be without it?
They are far too powerful, David. Sadly I don't see a mass departure from Facebook, though. People would have to make an effort and I suspect most are either too lazy or overwhelmed by the complications of moving.
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