The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Google and Facebook should abandon Australian news > Comments

Google and Facebook should abandon Australian news : Comments

By Graham Young, published 5/2/2021

Over the last 20 years I've seen legacy media make the most elementary mistakes which have contributed to the dumbing down of political culture and the hyper -sensationalising and -sexualising of media coverage.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All
Good on you Graham. You should be advising the government.
Posted by ttbn, Friday, 5 February 2021 8:36:39 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
There’s are two aspects here clothed in vagaries, one is the effective influence of the Murdoch press, the other is the latest propensity for Australia to be used as litmus paper.

Dan
Posted by diver dan, Friday, 5 February 2021 8:38:10 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I use Facebook to link to key media players to provide me news about issues I am interested in.

Graham is right. FB only provides a short summary and link to actual media source.

There should be research on how the equation works in terms of benefit to each party, rather than more whinging from a media sector that does not really have much readership any more.

If people want to read so-called quality journalism, albeit what is quality anyway given the ignorance of the mainstream media to China for many years, then pay for it
Posted by Chris Lewis, Friday, 5 February 2021 8:43:45 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Well argued, Graham. There's a very simple solution. Make it law that any company earning income or profit inside or from Australia has to pay an unavoidable 15% flat tax on that income regardless of where their alleged H.Q's are! As for news theft? Nothing is lost if the alleged news is mostly opinion pieces presented as news. The Murdoch press? In any event, the net tax collected will rise dramatically and those currently paying an honest share will be vastly better off!

As for Google and Facebook? Having them pay a fair tax as applies to all others, would place them in a position they could not argue with on any ground? We can get around the double tax act of 1953 by repealing and replacing it with something else with no loopholes!

And fit for purpose. And allow other governments to tax our nationals under the same criteria, given the way the current law/agreement allows the system to be gamed by the unscrupulous?

Leave Google and Facebook alone providing they pay their fair share of tax and let competition and the market decide who survives and who goes under! If little guys like yourself, Graham, can stand the heat?

I believe the government is disingenuous in its argument? And simply wishes to suppress free speech given some of it is not to their liking? Especially overwhelming, evidence-based, nuclear energy, peer-reviewed scientific facts? TBC.
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Friday, 5 February 2021 10:39:10 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
>While it might be legitimate to tax different kinds of companies at different rates and
>book the income to general revenue, it can never be legitimate to tax different
>companies at different rates and book the income to their competitors.

Bt that's not what's being proposed. The news content creators are suppliers not competitors.

Meanwhile Google have made a counterproposal. Unfortunately I don't know what it is because the link that purported to explain it instead linked to a Youtube video Google made about the problem. Some have said it's the only Youtube video you can still watch without seeing an ad first!
Posted by Aidan, Friday, 5 February 2021 10:50:13 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Google and Facebook should abandon Australian news
I'd be in favour of Australia giving the insanity of Google & facebook advertising a miss along with the insane repetiveness of Australian advertising.
Advertising is an industry that employs & provides a livelihood for many however, advertisers have overstepped the line. It's time to put a stop to the insanity ! By all means advertise your goods & services but there's really no justification/need for such perpetual saturation assaulting us via the Media & entertainment !
Give us a break !!
Posted by individual, Friday, 5 February 2021 11:40:11 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I'd like to say this article is spot on in its views but where is the evidence that Google and Facebook users, on seeing free articles originating from what Graham calls the legacy media, then migrate to those legacy media as paying clients. I have to mention that I've done this myself and now subscribe to The Spectator Australia but I read news from 5 or 6 other outlets and don't pay money to any of them.

So, as much as I'd like to believe the claims made in this article, where's the evidence please Graham?
Posted by Bernie Masters, Friday, 5 February 2021 2:49:03 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
There's a bit of poetic justice to be considered here. It's the 'progressive' media that wants government help against Big Tech. The print, TV and publishing industries lost 290,000 jobs (a 40% drop) between 2001 and 2017. Why? Because of the change/progress they are always rabbiting on about and telling us what a good thing it is. It's the millenials who get most of their information from Facebook and Google rather than the traditional media. The people who are going to have to make the changes are going to have to suck it up, just as they have been telling us oldies we have to do.
Posted by ttbn, Friday, 5 February 2021 3:40:13 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Cont.
Lots of strawman argument here by Murdoch's tame pollies. I mean the new regionals are not exactly swimming in rivers of gold! But get by comfortably because they're not dragging thousands of fully franked shareholders along for the ride and mountains of debt?

They were dumped, not because they didn't earn a profit! Just not enough profit! And the online is also burning the majors and they want their tame pollies to change the rules of the game?

So they can call all the shots? Earn rivers of gold from classifieds with too little competition? The old publishing paradigm?

And in all the years I read them, never a single article revealing the truth about nuclear! Just sensationalizing any nuclear accident!

Simply put, if coal or gas-fired power stations had to comply with the rogue emissions standard of nuclear power plants? They'd all be shut down tomorrow!

Take butchers at the multiple (scientific expert) vids I've shared on FB. Couldn't do that if FB was driven out on a bogus premise? Could I?
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Friday, 5 February 2021 5:53:18 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Apparently,
Green Sen SHY has proposed an Australian search engine also. She's right on that !
Posted by individual, Friday, 5 February 2021 6:23:06 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Here is another chance for Scott the Socialist to sling tax-payer funded welfare to business.

Amanda Rose, founder of Small Business Women Australia has called for incentives for them to switch from Google to another provider: 'Ya, know, a 10 thousand dollar voucher or something'.

Good opportunity there to get involved in gender politics, AdMan and it all adds to the love the Left has for you, as well as outdoing Labor in the silly spending area.
Posted by ttbn, Saturday, 6 February 2021 10:25:56 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
In recent years the mass media and truth have taken a holiday from each other. And I believe act more as a (green/lefty) filter to suppress certain truths?

One of those truths is that nuclear energy has had fewer deaths per gigawatt-hour that even hydro or the renewables. And that nuclear is the only reliable 24/7 option on the carbon-free, table!

If you want to see the graphs, listen to, the expert science and can't link the vids I've shared on FB. Just give me an email addy and I'll send a couple of dozen expert after expert vids via messenger.

[Block me when you have them all if you want?]

Now that I know how to do FB messenger, only too happy to oblige. Other than that, if ignorance is bliss? Tis folly to be wise. Truly it is the truth that really does set us free!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Saturday, 6 February 2021 11:06:22 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Alan.B, I am curious and would like to see the video's you speak of.
Is it possible for you to post them here on OLO?
Your research and information would be much more relevant and direct to the subject matter and garnering better more precise information on topic.
Without the usual spurious and irrelevant inclusions and distractions.
If it is possible, I would like to know more.
Thanks,
Al.
Posted by ALTRAV, Saturday, 6 February 2021 3:37:54 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Altrav. No, I've posted heaps of public domain on Facebook for the public. I can send enough to sink a ship if I have an email address. Doesn't have to be yours, just one you have access to.

I tried to send them to submissions here, but was blocked. Tried Sally neighbours of four corners! Same outcome. Tried to submit an opinion piece, sorry no interest.

Try thorium in five minutes, if only to get a snapshot of what is and has been rigorously suppressed. also type in, thorium, Super fuel, subtitled, green energy. By prize-winning investigative Journalist, Richard Martin. And watch a short presentation.

I understand one can get a very temporary email address and use a nickname that doesn't identify. Gmail or Yahoo?

Get one of Gmail's free ones and I'll snd enough to keep you busy for a week, is FB messenger? And you'll know why the powers that be, don't want Joe public to know this science-based evidence? And want FB gone?
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Saturday, 6 February 2021 5:40:03 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sorry, Aidan. Your augments for different rates of tax don't any hold water whatsoever and you completely obfuscate and strenuously misrepresent the rationale I was making. You're not a tax lawyer by any chance are you, defending huge vested interest?
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Saturday, 6 February 2021 5:47:08 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The most consequential thing GrahamY has said here is that if the local media/Government truly thought that Google et al were stealing content, then they would pursue remedies through copyright law.

That they aren't is evidence enough that local content isn't being stolen. What is being 'stolen' is advertising revenue and since the local media is unable to compete on that front they, in a long tradition of Australia big business, have gone running to the government for help and to seek rule changes.

I'm no fan of Big Tech and they do need to be reined in. (Similarly I hold no love for local media which has created its own problems but its more than a little funny to see all those Murdoch-haters suddenly anxious to sling him more money).

You sort of hope both sides could lose this one. But in terms of what's right, Google et al are, on this occasion, on the side of the angels.

I really hope that Google/FB etc do indeed simply stop directing traffic to local media sites, or perhaps only direct it to local sites that aren't seeking government assistance.

This is a battle neither the government nor the legacy media can win because the war was lost a long time ago. I suspect, or hope, that the government knows this but is playing along because, as with most things these days, their main concern is not rocking the boat. But in this case, the boat is taking water and will sink.
Posted by mhaze, Monday, 8 February 2021 3:57:07 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy