Australia passes landmark law requiring tech firms to pay for news (msn.com) "Facebook and Google will be forced to pay for Australian news under legislation passed Thursday that is being closely watched globally for precedents in the battle between Big Tech and media companies."
Pfft, governments are so stupid: https://searchengineland.com/google-set-to-deprecate-showcase-shopping-ads-on-april-1-346403 So, they told google that they have to pay for content using showcase, so, google decided to shut it down pimp move, as they say. Grats to Aussie government, you have done nothing! Here's my two pence worth: News websites were happy to use SEO mechanisms to try and make them appealing to advertisers, who put pop ups on their websites for big dick placebo pills. When they realised their content as a consequence of using SEO also featured on search engine results, they were not getting paid for the associated ad revenue. They did not like that and wanted all of the benefits of SEO, with none of the consequences. In short terms, they wanted to use googles' massive infrastructure and back end to make them money, but did not want Google to get any money out of it. This is a rare moment when I take sides with Google, but not Facebook. Facebook is much more about Facebook engineering its content and algos' to try and be as good as they can in maximizing its ad revenue, at the cost of editorial. This is essentially a key global point right now with content providers and news, in that SMC's are controlling the content on their sites, making them publishers of content. This is also what Trump was talking about, running up to the election 2019-2020, as SMC's are typically/commonly liberal externally, but illiberal internally. Facebook, in simple terms, had everything to gain from news companies that suited their external ideology, but internally allowed them to profit when their algos pushed liberal content. Their is a very strong reason why Nick Clegg was hired by Facebook, and to discuss this breaks forum rules. Anyway, this thread is political...I think? Back to SEO: SEO costs money. People finding and going to your site costs money. News sites and journalism must be ethical, empirical and non-biased in reporting facts...yet they are pushing for more money and to be profitable? Where do we all draw the line? I would like these news companies to stop being companies all together and just admit they are only doing this job for the money. Oh wait! They just did! So, congrats sarcastically to all news comporations for showing everyone how you curate your content! Did no one think about this, or, perhaps they were just thinking about the money...
I'm sure money impacted a lot that'd be my first kneejerk reaction loobs (JK) nah @Loobyluggs I hear ya sir I got to go through this more ... to give a better more thorough response but I read what you wrote and the last part made me think how everyone right now under the Pandemic is likely going to push for ways to monetize more than not eh? EDIT: Also while News has declined yes and may offset that on social media (may or may not) they have used social media as a massive advertising platform - that... may open themselves to a devil's advocate argument as it were on the part of the social media companies... Sure one can use the waybackmachine and fine the websites of the news aggregates in question with twitter facebook and such "buttons" amongst their sites... Did they pay them? I know one can buy advertising options... countries have laws that protect from government censorship far as I understand usually - you still pay for advertising... still that's on the burden of the media companies I guess
What the SMC's could do, and it would never happen, would be to REFUSE taking payments from news corporations in terms of SEO. If they did that, they would not get any traffic to their site, unless it is shared or, someone enters the precise URL for the article. That would (currently) not be illegal (the refusal to take money from someone) but, if they did, those news sites would have to survive on their winning personalites alone to drive website traffic... You didn't like school And you know you're nobody's fool So welcome to the machine
