Facebook news ban Australia.

Santa · Guru

Facebook news ban Australia.

Whenarewethere · Guru

I've never used facebook, so it's a moot point!

Tony LEE · Guru

Been using Facebook for several years (as distinct from Facebook using me) and I have never seen any news on the site. To get specific news you have to go to a specific page managed by that particular news outlet, and in doing that, you open yourself up to more Facebook advertising. Seems more sensible to go to the home Web pages or apps of any news source you are interested in

msg · Guru

Facebook . Information? Does not gel. Tell me though, just what are the trustworthy and reputable news sites? Are there any?

Surely not the ABC? Some of their antics of late are quite questionable.

NINE? YAHOO? SKY? EPOCH TIMES? THE GUARDIAN? SMH? ETC. they put forward sensationalist headlines that more often than not have no relationship to the actual storey. Some are subscription only so are they double dipping when they charge facebook?

I will miss the ability to put a link to a news story and a comment about a said story to my friends. I presume that will not be allowed.

bgt · Guru

The definition of news is?

Buzz Lightbulb · Guru

I think that it's great that the Australian Government are standing up to these multinational companies that make billions of dollars out of our data without giving much back.

I've never used Facebook but the really annoying thing about that ABC news article is that they don't mention the hundreds of alternative social media sites that people can use.

I read the ABC news and watch the ABC TV channels. I find that they are the more balanced provider. Also, I hate ads so I can stand the ABC TV. If I'm watching something on a commercial channel and an ad come on I'll either record what I'm watching or switch to something else. Usually, there's not much on the commercial channels to keep warrant my attention.

I also noticed that good shows on the ABC like Foyles War, Grantchester, Father Brown, Death in Paradise, David Attenborough specials, etcetera, are shown on the ABC before they end up on the commercial channels years later. Of course there aren't that many "reality TV" shows on the ABC but, to me, they're rubbish.

My two cents worth.

msg · Guru

bgt wrote:
The definition of news is?

Story? That's all it is no matter where it comes from.

Whenarewethere · Guru

bgt wrote:
The definition of news is?

On the whole these days. Ignorance!

Mike Harding · Guru

With respect to the OP:

Who cares?

Possum3 · Guru

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now worth $100 billion. Doesn't feel he needs to pay news organisations for using their material for him to make millions more - Tight-Ass comes to mind.

Greg 1 · Guru

Well I look at the bigger picture. Both Google and Facebook are services provided to the majority of us as free services. They make their revenue by advertising or businesses wishing to list their companies on these forums and pay for that as part of their advertising budget. News media have been using these two services for years and as the newspaper business has declined have switched over to the internet for the majority of their news. They had hoped to sell subscriptions to their various news services but this has not turned out so well as people ignore the blocked subscription only articles and move on to the free ones. I am no different. So now these news services are trying another tack by trying to get the two carriers to pay for the news items instead of them paying for using Google and Facebook services. If I was Google and Facebook I would tell them where to go as well. They are private businesses and have every right to protect their interests and choose who they will have on their service. The news media are basically saying that we want to use your service but want you to pay us for that privilege. I know this impacts a vast collection of people as we have come to rely on these two services but it is not just their greed but those of people such as Murdoch pushing their barrow in the face of a rapidly changing world and politicians stupid enough to get caught up in the crap.

dorian · Guru

I agree with Greg. All web sites can prevent search bots from crawling their site by stipulating a "no crawl" directive in the robots.txt file. Unfortunately Australian politicians are too stupid to understand this.

Quote from ABC:

"Google Search is inextricably intertwined with news and publishers do not voluntarily provide their content."

A Google spokesperson took issue with this claim, highlighting growing division in the technology sector.

"All publishers, along with everyone else, always have a choice about whether their site shows up in Google Search," they said.

https://www.news.com.au/robots.txt

User-agent: *

Disallow: /*/comments-*
Disallow: /*/print/
Disallow: /*SIT*
Disallow: /*.swf
Disallow: /printpage/
Disallow: /double-rainbow
Disallow: /double-rainbow/
Disallow: /*-simplify/*
Disallow: /it-test-only/
Disallow: /enewsletters/
Disallow: /search?q=*
Disallow: */rss$
Disallow: */rss2/$
Disallow: */feed$
Disallow: /*/coupons/visit/*

Sitemap: https://www.news.com.au/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.news.com.au/news-sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.news.com.au/coupons/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.news.com.au/video-sitemap.xml

#Agent Specific Disallowed Sections

User-agent: NewsNow

Disallow: /

It would appear that news.com.au has disallowed the NewsNow search bot access to their entire site.

-- Edited by dorian on Thursday 18th of February 2021 04:15:34 PM

bgt · Guru

I'm not so sure the money side of things is the key issue. Facebook etc simply 'harvests' news of other sites. They do no work and rely on the work of others without due consideration. But that's secondary to the big picture. Facebook etc are now 'censoring' 'news' stories that suit their agenda. ie the former president of the USA. It's about free speech. If these huge organizations are the ones who determine what we read then there's a problem. A big problem.

Violence, child abuse etc no worries ban it. But free speech is what is key to a smooth running world. Every one has an opinion. They have a right to express that opinion. It's not up to Facebook to tell us what we can and can't read.

dorian · Guru

ABC's robots.txt:

https://www.abc.net.au/robots.txt

# robots.txt for https://www.abc.net.au/ -- ABC Online
User-agent: *
Disallow: /classic/contact/concerts.htm
Disallow: /classic/contact/default.htm
Disallow: /classic/contact/eventsdiary.htm
Disallow: /classic/contact/formerror.htm
Disallow: /classic/contact/formthanks.htm
Disallow: /classic/contact/general.htm
Disallow: /classic/contact/limelight.htm
Disallow: /classic/contact/mailinglist.htm
Disallow: /classic/contact/music.htm
Disallow: /classic/contact/presenter.htm
Disallow: /classic/contact/website.htm
Disallow: /classic/contact/word.htm
Disallow: /xmlcontent/
Disallow: /classicfm/

#OPSSD-340 2015/5/5
Disallow: /iview/



#INNG-46: 2014-12-30
Disallow: /site-archive/

# Added for corporate communications, as they have migrated to a new site
Disallow: /corp/
Disallow: /contact/

# Added for Homepage Beta, prevent indexing during public beta
Disallow: /homepage/2013/
Disallow: /beta/

# Added for WCMS Tennent testing, not a public 
Disallow: /abc4000/

User-agent: Googlebot
Crawl-delay: 5

User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Crawl-delay: 5

User-agent: MSNBot
Crawl-delay: 5

User-agent: Slurp
Crawl-delay: 5

########################################

User-agent: FlipboardProxy
Crawl-delay: 2
Disallow: /news/image/

User-agent: iSec_Bot
Disallow: /

User-agent: TurnitinBot
Disallow: / 

User-agent: ICC-Crawler
Disallow: /

User-agent: trendkite-akashic-crawler
Disallow: /

User-agent: TinEye-bot
Disallow: /

User-agent: R6_CommentReader
Disallow: /

User-agent: BLEXBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Nutch
Disallow: /

Wikipedia article on the robots exclusion protocol:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_exclusion_standard

-- Edited by dorian on Thursday 18th of February 2021 04:55:41 PM

msg · Guru

I could say, that the pollies knew exactly the ramifications of their actions. Facebook was good place to discuss issues about things that are happening. We often supported our thoughts with the evidence reported on the news. This has effectively shut down another way we mushrooms are able to discuss the news and also what they are up to?

Recoup · Guru

msg wrote:
I could say, that the pollies knew exactly the ramifications of their actions. Facebook was good place to discuss issues about things that are happening. We often supported our thoughts with the evidence reported on the news. This has effectively shut down another way we mushrooms are able to discuss the news and also what they are up to?

Try Gab/ Social , cheers

Craig1 · Guru

Why did public funded organizations get sucked into only having Facebook as their outlet ? Surely NSW Rural Fire Service for one, Royal Children's Hospital for 2 could put their info on their own websites, then have a fb link as an after thought

Santa · Guru

Craig1 wrote:
Why did public funded organizations get sucked into only having Facebook as their outlet ? Surely NSW Rural Fire Service for one, Royal Children's Hospital for 2 could put their info on their own websites, then have a fb link as an after thought

Once again the voice of reason Craig, I like your logic. smile

dabbler · Guru

Social media apps and their feeds are far simpler to add and update topical information than dedicated websites. Personnel in the field can add to a time sensitive story on their phone without risk or corruption to layout etc even in the most tightly managed websites. Most social media allow linking and one post can be automatically relayed to a large number if options, including the organisation's websites. Starting at the website and going outwards is much more complicated and not a single step. More importantly, there are thousands of communities that have no local newspapers or website but do have a FB page. These are now mute, deaf and blind. Likewise service organizations like state health depts and BOM are also crippled. The real joke is that "news" outlets can post to FB via Instagram (owned by FB) but not directly to FB. Who's at fault ? Well Rupert got his way and the non-profits have lost. You decide.

oldbloke · Guru

Possum3 wrote:
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now worth $100 billion. Doesn't feel he needs to pay news organisations for using their material for him to make millions more - Tight-Ass comes to mind.

Yep +1

oldbloke · Guru

Buzz Lightbulb wrote:
I think that it's great that the Australian Government are standing up to these multinational companies that make billions of dollars out of our data without giving much back.

I've never used Facebook but the really annoying thing about that ABC news article is that they don't mention the hundreds of alternative social media sites that people can use.

I read the ABC news and watch the ABC TV channels. I find that they are the more balanced provider. Also, I hate ads so I can stand the ABC TV. If I'm watching something on a commercial channel and an ad come on I'll either record what I'm watching or switch to something else. Usually, there's not much on the commercial channels to keep warrant my attention.

I also noticed that good shows on the ABC like Foyles War, Grantchester, Father Brown, Death in Paradise, David Attenborough specials, etcetera, are shown on the ABC before they end up on the commercial channels years later. Of course there aren't that many "reality TV" shows on the ABC but, to me, they're rubbish.

My two cents worth.

Pretty right there

oldbloke · Guru

www.abc.net.au/news/

Problem solved

msg · Guru

"The Morrison Government will today introduce further amendments to the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code." Nine news

Did the govt cave ?

Trevor 57 · Senior Member

Good on Facebook for taking the Government to task, FB is correct in what they are doing

Anyone can post what they like (within reason) on FB, many clubs, Government bodies, news outlets all avail themselves of this 'free' outlet to promote their 'wares'

So, Ch 7 (for example) decides to open up a page on FB and then starts putting their news-feeds up - that is a choice Ch 7 has made, they should be paying FB not the other way around. Ch7 has decided that they want to post on FB, it is not FB pinching their info and posting it on FB

We will never hear of the fine details that were reached overnight, because my bet is that the news outlets will have to pay FB to post their content on FB. Maybe in some small pocket FB will have to pay and that is what the Government will be trotting out as their resolution - removing egg from their faces

Just to be clear here, I am NOT a fan of big tech, but FB was right to challenge this

msg · Guru

https://www.tga.gov.au/advertising-covid-19-vaccines-australian-public

it forbids,

"In using government materials to promote COVID-19 vaccines, advertisers must be careful not to add:

the tradename and/or active ingredient of the specific vaccine or other information that might enable consumers to identify the particular vaccine or the manufacturer of the vaccine
statements or the implication that harmful effects will result from not receiving the vaccine

statements or the implication that the vaccine offered is superior to other vaccines (e.g. a statement about the efficacy against a particular strain)
incentives to encourage a consumer to obtain the service or vaccine

any comparisons between vaccines (even if supported by evidence)"

Santa · Guru

Trevor 57 wrote:
Good on Facebook for taking the Government to task, FB is correct in what they are doing

Anyone can post what they like (within reason) on FB, many clubs, Government bodies, news outlets all avail themselves of this 'free' outlet to promote their 'wares'

So, Ch 7 (for example) decides to open up a page on FB and then starts putting their news-feeds up - that is a choice Ch 7 has made, they should be paying FB not the other way around. Ch7 has decided that they want to post on FB, it is not FB pinching their info and posting it on FB

We will never hear of the fine details that were reached overnight, because my bet is that the news outlets will have to pay FB to post their content on FB. Maybe in some small pocket FB will have to pay and that is what the Government will be trotting out as their resolution - removing egg from their faces

Just to be clear here, I am NOT a fan of big tech, but FB was right to challenge this

We heard you the first time, duplicate posts are unnecessary.

Trevor 57 · Senior Member

why is there 2 threads then, one here and one in the other place?

Santa · Guru

It's called multi posting, not the done thing. wink

Trevor 57 · Senior Member

Are you addressing me or the starter of the thread

msg · Guru

I got kicked off Facebook the other day. Not for anything I did wrong, but I tried to change my birthday. The change made me zero yrs old. Message "you are too young to have a facebook account.." Bye Bye. no chance to fix or anything. To get back on they said I had to prove I am old enough so please send them one of the identifications on their list...

You can send us one government ID to confirm your name or regain access to your account. Anything that you send us should contain either your name and date of birth or your name and photo.

Birth certificate
Driver's license
Passport
Marriage certificate
Official name change paperwork
Non-driver's government ID (ex: disability, SNAP card, national ID card, pension card)
Green card, residence permit or immigration papers
Tribal identification or status card
Voter ID card
Family certificate
Visa
National age card
Immigration registration card
Tax identification card

I wrote back and said , No thanks you are not getting anything. Bye Bye