Billion Dollar Boy’s Post

Facebook finally ends it's folly of a news experiment. Let's never forget that there was a once a time where Facebook acknowledged their algorithm was bad for journalism... "...when it introduced Facebook News in 2019, the company said, “We hope this work aids in our effort to sustain great journalism and strengthen democracy,” and that a survey “found that we were under-serving many topics people wanted most in their News Feeds, especially around categories like entertainment, health, business and sports.” The experiment failed because the motive behind it wasn't sincere. In the end, Facebook didn't care about "journalism" and "democracy". The news tab was born to protect Facebook from scrutiny heading into the 2020 election. If they really cared about news they wouldn't have buried it on a separate tab and only worked out deals with the nation's largest publishers. If they really cared they would have simply fixed the algorithm. If it hasn't become blatantly obvious by now, let me sum it up - Facebook is NEVER going to fix their algorithm. EVEN when they acknowledge it's bad for democracy. Stop relying on social media to bring you traffic. Build direct relationships with your customers. Use social for brand discovery, but don't rely on it for sustained clicks. #socialmedia #news #journalism #broadcasting #facebook

Lots of talk last week about the federal government’s tête-à-tête with social media giant X, regarding what Elon calls censorship and our government calls being a decent corporate citizen that shouldn’t broadcast (literal) acts of terror. But I digress, because the story that has perhaps escaped a few, is this - covered by Rick Morton in his usual meticulous detail in The Saturday Paper: the federal government’s spat with Meta and to a lesser extent Google, and whether the latter two should pay for local news content served through its platforms. Throw in the views and agendas of a few news organizations looking to flex some muscle, and there’s a bit to unpack. (Sidebar: how good is long form journalism?) Meta threatening to pull Facebook out of Australia is no small deal. Putting aside the fact that my mum would be shattered (she loves ‘the facebook’), there are many implications that extend well beyond your local marketplace vendor flogging an old couch. Lots of organizations - corporates and community - will require a rethink on what they do to promote and protect their reputation. Despite the shift in age and demographics of who makes up the bulk of Facebook’s users today as younger active users switch to other platforms, its exit would leave a not insignificant sized hole.

This is the most thoughtful piece I've read on Facebook and the media bargaining code. Kudos to James Purtill for going deep. Too much of the coverage has been one-sided, which is unsurprising as news publishers have a dog in the fight and millions at stake. Most of the hot takes leave out a key fact - editors (including me) fell over themselves in the early 2010s to get as much content on Facebook as possible because it generated page views and revenue, a trend that held strong for a decade. I don't think it's fair to say Facebook "steals news". What they did was create almost unlimited space for cheap and highly targeted advertising. This took ad dollars away from the media. The upshot is that we have fewer journalists producing content, which is often (but not always) written to compete for engagement, and distributed through social media systems that are wired for sensationalism and outrage. Our media ecosystem is poorer for it, and we need a solution that is more fundamental than "make those rich platforms pay for the news". Anyway, read the article! There's no point in me rewriting a version of it here.

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#MediaEconomists and #SocialMediaGurus what do you make of New Zealand's decision to tax social media platforms to fund news media? In principle I think it's great (insert long list of reasons why we need well-funded journalism here). But considering Meta's first reaction was to stop sharing news on Canadian Facebook (with Australia likely to follow suit) -- is this an effective tactic, or will it just make our ability to access accurate information all the more harder? Especially interested to hear how this could play out in South Africa. Which raises more questions: Would SARS handle this, or would we need a SAMRO-type organisation to collect 'royalties'? And what about content aggregators who share to social media; would they be taxed, or would the platform pay for every time the article gets shared? Link to the article 🔗 https://lnkd.in/df2vdN3w

https://lnkd.in/g9Rqh4uE  YouTube hires humans to review videos that are flagged. This could result in demonetization, or even complete removal of content. It may seem unfair to the creator but it is the right of YouTube as the platform owner/operator to impose rules.  However, if unfair removal of content and demonetization happens on a massive scale, a competitor may seize upon this as a way to differentiate itself from YouTube and slowly chip away at YouTube's dominance. That competitor could then attract some of YouTube's best content creators to set up new channels on its platform.  This could be happening, but YouTube is still the market leader. Perhaps because a lot of advertisers prefer it, and overlook its competitors. And so for content creators looking for monetisation, it seems that for now they have no choice but to stick with YouTube. Because that's where the ad spend happens.

I can't believe I'm typing this as someone who has both worked for a social media platform at Snapchat, and spent many years since evangelizing the value of social media platforms as a distribution method for news.... BUT... As we're seeing the tide turn, and the relationships between the major tech platforms and the news industry deteriorate *even further, * I'm starting to feel like news orgs should consider abandoning posting content on social media, all together. Social media teams should be repositioned as general marketing teams to promote content through direct to consumer distribution channels, and explore nontraditional methods. For example, launching a text message distribution campaign using tools like Subtext, invest in push notifications using tools like Pushly stop housing your video content on YouTube to play on your website and look at products like EX.CO, in-person and virtual events and publishing quickturn videos from those events using products like SnapStream. There is a whole world out there outside of social media that should be the focus on newsroom leadership. And with governments intervening in places like Australia, Canada and possibly California, newsrooms need to position themselves to be in control of their own destiny, and not reliant on tech platforms for content distribution. Or they could wind up like some of the outlets in this WIRED piece, see below. DMs open and welcome feedback on this line of thinking in comments. https://lnkd.in/efzjMCWk #news #audience #audienceengagement #journalism #socialmedia

New Post: Missing From Your Facebook News Feed: Canadian News It could be months before an escalating fight between Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, and the Canadian government gets resolved, but Matthew DiMera, publisher of a Canadian news organization, is already feeling the pain.Mr. DiMera tried to create an Instagram post featuring a news article by his outlet, The Resolve — something news organizations do routinely to promote their work. Instead, he said, he was greeted by the message: “People in Canada can’t see your content.”Meta this week began blocking news from appearing on its platforms in Canada, the latest twist in its standoff with the government over a new law that will require technology companies to compensate domestic publishers for using their content. The law comes at a time when the news industry in Canada, as in much of the world, is shrinking under the pressure of lower advertising revenues, and depends on social networks for much of its readership.“Instagram has been a really great platform for us to connect with people, so losing that is really a huge concern for us,” said Mr. DiMera, who started The Resolve in 2021 to report stories on Black, Indigenous and racially diverse communities.The new law will not go into effect until December, but Meta has launched something of a pre-emptive strike with a news blockade that it said will roll out over a few weeks. Facebook and Instagram users in Canada will be unable to share links to news articles from local or international outlets anywhere on their accounts, including in short video posts called “reels” or in the comment sections of other posts.The law, called the Online News Act, was passed in June and will require technology companies to license news content through agreements with individual publishers, or groups of publishers, and then pay news outlets for linking to their articles.Canadian news outlets and publishers reacted angrily to Meta’s decision to block news access.The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the country’s public broadcaster, accused Meta of “an abuse of their market power” that would especially affect communities that rely on Facebook to access news articles, including those in northern Canada, rural areas and users from Francophone or multilingual backgrounds. Some of those communities have limited access to print publications.“It’s another blow to democracy and to the opportunity for us to access fair and balanced, well-sourced journalism,” said Megan Boler, a professor of media and communication studies at the University of Toronto.Meta defended its actions in a blog post this week, rejecting the notion that it unfairly benefits from news content on its platforms and arguing that it has generated significant revenue for publishers.The implementation of the online law is still being negotiated between the government and tech platforms. Details to be worked out include establishing thresholds on payments to n

In light of the bloodbath for NZ news media this week, some interesting analysis on Big Tech v News from over the ditch. TL;DR: Meta doesn’t want news on its platform if it’ll be made to pay for it. It’ll then ban news (as it has in Canada), whereupon misinformation will flourish because people are not exposed to enough quality information about public affairs. As a natural optimist, I’d love to think our government would do something to stem a cultural slide into sensationalism, outrage and conspiracy if we want to maintain a stable democracy as our chosen form of governance. The challenge in maintaining the media’s role as ‘the fourth estate’ - as well as its fundamental role in democracy both of holding power to account and providing a common understanding of the world around us - really comes down to governments, including ours, closing tax loopholes exploited by big tech. That’s the real issue. After all, as the EU Tax Observatory points out in its Global Tax Evasion Report 2024 (link in thread) global tax competition and evasion is not a law of nature, it’s a policy choice. Imagine if our government actually took a global leadership position on this, standing on a platform that already exists - New Zealand’s international reputation for progressive policy. We’ve been David against Goliath many times. It may be naive to think we could make real change on this issue - but I prefer that to contemplating the alternative future - we only have to turn our eyes to America’s political landscape for a glimpse of that.

https://lnkd.in/ewummCFW Remember the Media Ownership Victory of 2003 MITCHELL SZCZEPANCZYK Sep 06, 2023 ..."after 1980, the craze to emphasize business over the public -- "deregulation" as it was termed -- eroded those media ownership limits over the next two decades. And in June 2003, the FCC went for the gusto and voted to eliminate the remaining limits. The result was a public outcry of historic proportions. More than three million people responded, setting an all-time FCC record by orders of magnitude. But that outcry didn't just happen: Grassroots media activists (including those at Chicago Media Action, where I volunteered) worked hard to raise awareness at a time when the major media went mute, hoping to cash in before people noticed and it would be too late. But Congress did notice the public outcry, as did the courts, and the Third Circuit Court asked the rhetorical question: "You [at the FCC] got a million postcards. Does that matter?" The subsequent court order -- served one day before the vote went into effect -- caught many media companies flatfooted. Even some companies like Viacom and the Tribune Corporation unraveled in its wake. It might all seem quaint today, given that the "legacy" media are now small potatoes compared to internet giants like Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Apple. But everyday people can fight and win these struggles, as happened with the Media Ownership Uprising of 2003, and reminders about these victories can inspire future victories to come."