- Fuck Meta.
- This particular issue is one where the Canadian government has made a terrible law that deserves pushback.
- Fuck Meta.
Strongly agreed. I think a lot of commenters in this thread are getting derailed by their feelings towards Meta. This is truly a dumb, dumb law and it’s extremely embarrassing that it even passed.
It’s not just Meta. No company wants to comply with this poorly thought out law, written by people who apparently have no idea how the internet works.
I think most of the people in the comments cheering this on haven’t read the bill. It requires them to pay news sites to link to the news site. Which is utterly insane. Linking to news sites is a win win. It means Facebook or Google gets to show relevant content and the news site gets users. This bill is going to hurt Canadian news sites because sites like Google and Facebook will avoid linking to them.
I don’t disagree.
But where I see a small nugget of good intent in this law is in the fact that I’d be willing to wager a very large percentage of people read the blurb on Facebook, which summarizes the entire story, and never click over to the actual article, thereby robbing the news site of ad revenue.
This isn’t (supposed to) be about paying to post links. It’s about paying to summarize their content so that users don’t have to leave Facebook.
Right. It’s like if I stand at a street corner telling people to try out a local restaurant. And then the local restaurant says that I should be charged to recommend them. It makes no sense.
I hate Meta, but this is just a dumb law.
It’s worse.
The preview Facebook or whoever is providing is the content the site literally explicitly provided for the purpose of linking to their website. It’s like the restaurant gave you a stack of flyers then tried to charge you for handing them out.
Is it actually a provided preview, or a preview they are generating.
I know part of the legit problem is when a website summarizes something and then people don’t click on the link, which reduces ad revenue.
But maybe there’s a provided summary (which should be fine) and the other way it gets summarized (which could arguably be deemed bad)
But making them pay to just link with is batshit insane.
They’ll do a really empty stub I think, but all the fancy previews are tags sites add that are basically “when you link to me, could you show me like this?”
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/what-is-open-graph-and-how-can-i-use-it-for-my-website/
Ya, if the news organizations are using open graph and that’s all Google and Facebook and whoever are using that’s stupid.
Show our preview so people will click the link! OH NO our preview is too good and people aren’t clicking the link! Government make them pay us!
This will essentially break Google News and the like in Canada. It’s idiotic in so many ways.
I agree with all 3
People aren’t seeing the forest for the trees here. Yeah, nobody likes Meta, but the larger impact of Bill C18 will be that sources like Google and other large aggregators will stop allowing links to legitimate news sources, and instead be flooded by blogspam and misinformation.
People won’t suddenly be navigating to The Toronto Star when they don’t get news on the latest updates in say the Corona virus in their immediate Google results, they’ll just continue to click on through to whatever sketchy source manages to SEO their way to the top instead.
This is a problem that the “legitimate news sources” created and they will need to ask to remove the laws they asked for in the first place if they want their viewership to come back.
Oh no. Millions of users are going to have to get their news from off facebook! What facebook stuff they do see is going to require they actually click through and view the website instead of reading a blurb and a headline so the site gets its deserved page views.
Well, they won’t be able to get their news from “news outlets” specifically linked on Facebook. They will still be able to get their news from other sources on Facebook.
Not sure if that’s actually an improvement though.
Don’t threaten me with a good time, Mark.
Honestly I just hope this backfires and less Canadians end up using Facebook, we’d definitely be much better off
I haven’t knowingly used a Facebook/Meta product in many years and my life is better for it.
Me too. Facebook is the craigslist of Social Networks. Hard to go more than two posts without running into a scam or a business.
I used to work consumer help desk and 90% of the actual virus problems people brought in their machines for were from Facebook ads.
The site is riddled.
I read that as you want Canadians off of FB because they’re spoiling it, lol.
let’s just end Meta, period. Thanks
That’d be the dream.
Can we spin off their VR headsets first, and THEN end Meta?
This already happened in Australia, and was later amended. Google caved, Facebook partly caved.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56099523
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/facebook-ban-australia-1.5924076
According to bill C-18 lemmy.ca now owes CBC for the link you just posted.
… But I posted it using kbin :)
How are they gonna invoice this one?
They will charge the instance hosting the link. Like they where going to charge Facebook not the users.
No. Stop spreading propaganda.
Well here is the law…
It makes no word of for profit / non profit, it defines the intermediary posting links as basically anything more popular than the news outlet they are linking to and gives the media outlets all sorts of power to complain and escalate if they think linking is unfair.
You can go read the law?
https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/royal-assent
Application 6 This Act applies in respect of a digital news intermediary if, having regard to the following factors, there is a significant bargaining power imbalance between its operator and news businesses: (a) the size of the intermediary or the operator; (b) whether the market for the intermediary gives the operator a strategic advantage over news businesses; and (c) whether the intermediary occupies a prominent market position.Are you making money personally by posting media links on Lemmy?
No.
This is 100% about billionaire anti-democracy bad actors having control over what people see. And profiting by doing so.
It’s UNBELIEVABLE how zillionaires Zuckerberg and Google have managed to convince people that their own crappy behaviors are all to blame on the Liberal Canadian government. It didn’t have to be this way. Zuckerberg and Google CHOSE THIS.
Didn’t say the bill applied to users AT ALL but does apply to the intermediary hosting the links… IE lemmy.ca could be targeted due to the vague broad definition. If Lemmy.ca became a popular source of information news outlets could demand arbitration or try to harass lemmy.ca legally. Which even if there was nothing for them to win could be costly.
I’m sure Canada will be better off for it.
How will Canada be better off?
Canadians won’t be getting their news from Facebook. Hopefully, it will drive people to actual news sites or aggregators where they can click and read the news and be informed.
But they can still get news from Facebook, they just won’t be getting it from “news outlets” specifically.
I wish it went further than that. That’s kinda sad.
“Further than that” meaning banning links in general?
No, not that. I guess I am looking for a solution to the headline reader that doesn’t read the article and then posts it. The kind of news of Facebook can be alarming and I don’t think it should be a news source.
Works for me.
They did this in Australia but Australia’s law was actually good
Facebook might actually be usable. Honestly jealous.
@aranym Can we get this globally?? Then perhaps more people would get their news from actual sources and not blindly trust a random link on a social platform.
Isn’t this the opposite of what’s happening? Facebook posts can’t contain links to “actual sources” but can contain “random links”?
Seriously, I have FB since 2008 or so, and I don’t care at all about this. I don’t have my news through FB…
All META and other billionaire anti-democracy thieves have to do is pay their fair share. I support this 100%. Fuck Zuckerberg and greeder tech bros. #BoycottMETA
Good. Bye Meta.
