Facebook

[Olaf Hart]

Just a heads up, I deactivated my Farcebook account today.

You may have caught up with the news that Facebook disconnected all news sites today in Australia, and inadvertently took down a lot of public information pages as well.

The Oz government is considering legislating to make providers pay publishers for news articles posted on their sites. Microsoft has welcomed it, Google has just completed negotiations with Oz news outlets to let them access their data.

Zuckerberg just unilaterally threw the switch, not a popular play but he has seriously misread the room.

Oz has been pushing back against bullying by the CCP for the last year, and isn’t in any mood to put up with this sort of nonsense, just don’t look for us on Facebook ATM.

[Charlie]

I expect the general state of mental health in Australia will improve as a result.

[Panope]

I expect the general state of mental health in Australia will improve as a result.

I don't know, Charlie.

Even if he fully recovers, Olaf is just one person.......

[LarryHoward]

I’ll admit I’m not fully up to speed on it but AIUI, the Australian government wants Facebook to pay Murdock (and others) when anyone links a news article? I don’t have a FB account but from looking at Lynne’s, I don’t see many posting from “Facebook” with news articles. I do see NYTimes posting (linked to a paywall) and plenty of individuals posting news like that support their individual bias. As far as I know, FB merely curates what you see based on their algorithm. I’m not aware that they generate content other than pushing sponsored stuff incessantly.

Is this a case of charging the platform for what their users post?

As to Alphabet? There is a war going on between them and FB for access/users. I would suggest Microsoft welcomed it only as it disadvantages FaceBook.

Should Scantlings pay for each linked news report one of us posts?

Locally, Maryland has passed a tax on digital ads. Not sure how they will track or assess it but imagine every google ad or pop up being tracked and taxed within various jurisdictions.

[BeauV]

I think the real issue here is that the person/company which creates the content expects to get paid for their work. A fair assessment in my opinion. What Facebook (and others) allows one to do is put other people's content on a Facebook user's "page" where Facebook gets the ad revenue and the creator/owner of the content gets nothing. The content in question is quite literally owned by either the news agency or the person who wrote it (or took a photo), yet for decades Facebook (and others) have built a business on the back of other people's content. In contrast, Google provides a link to the original source of the material or a paid ad that is clearly labeled as advertising.

If the Facebook user was writing the content and choosing to put it on a Facebook page, it would be different. That's not what's happening here.

Facebook is enabling its users to use the tools provided by Facebook to strip someone else's content and display it on a Facebook page, which allows Facebook to harvest the profit or credit rather than the content owner.

It seems pretty clear to me. The tools and platforms that Facebook provides to its users enable wholesale theft. The fact that others also do it is utterly irrelevant.

[BeauV]

As a final comment, radio and TV stations (which also survive on an advertising business model or subscription service) have established royalty fee structures to pay for content that appears on their system. Every time a David Crosby song gets played, David gets paid. But, when folks put one of his songs as the soundtrack to a video they picked up off the internet, David gets nothing.

Facebook is just a better-organized version of the Napster rip-off of yore.

[SemiSalt]

As a final comment, radio and TV stations (which also survive on an advertising business model or subscription service) have established royalty fee structures to pay for content that appears on their system. Every time a David Crosby song gets played, David gets paid. But, when folks put one of his songs as the soundtrack to a video they picked up off the internet, David gets nothing.

Facebook is just a better-organized version of the Napster rip-off of yore.

YouTube has an automatic procedure that scans the audio of every post and compares it to a database of copyrighted music. If it finds more than 2 seconds of match, the video is taken down automatically unless the site belongs to the copyright owner. Content providers are complaining bitterly since the process is sometimes inaccurate and is stricter than the concept of fair use.

The was a news story this week that cops are taking advantage buy playing copyrighted music while their body cams are on so if they are ever posted, the process will take them down immediately.

[BeauV]

As a final comment, radio and TV stations (which also survive on an advertising business model or subscription service) have established royalty fee structures to pay for content that appears on their system. Every time a David Crosby song gets played, David gets paid. But, when folks put one of his songs as the soundtrack to a video they picked up off the internet, David gets nothing.

Facebook is just a better-organized version of the Napster rip-off of yore.

YouTube has an automatic procedure that scans the audio of every post and compares it to a database of copyrighted music. If it finds more than 2 seconds of match, the video is taken down automatically unless the site belongs to the copyright owner. Content providers are complaining bitterly since the process is sometimes inaccurate and is stricter than the concept of fair use.

The was a news story this week that cops are taking advantage by playing copyrighted music while their body cams are on so if they are ever posted, the process will take them down immediately.

Yes, the technology that is used by Shazam (an app that recognizes music) is quite good. YouTube could use it if they paid the authors. The cops playing music as a workaround is pretty funny and clever. Probably an unintended side effect. Of course, all the author has to do is pay the fee, which is quite literally extreeeeeemly tiny. (femtocents?) You can literally whistle into Shazam and it will recognize the tune.

Early in the internet era, my Dad said: "This network and these apps are turning our entire country into a community of thieves." I think he has been proven to be correct. However, there is a massive distinction between one person tacking a song onto a video for their friends and a massive multibillion-dollar company building a tool that automates the theft of people's intellectual property.

[Panope]

During one of my workshop video shoots, Jimi Hendricks was quietly playing in the background (on the radio). I forgot which tune, but it was serendipitous with what was being filmed.

Did not even try to slip it past Google. The whole scene hit the cutting room floor.

Steve

[kimbottles]

Good thing JPL/NASA didn’t have music playing while the newest Rover landed on Mars today.

[Jamie]

Good thing JPL/NASA didn’t have music playing while the newest Rover landed on Mars today.

Ha! I thought I was the only one to watch. The "clean" feed from the control station was very interesting.

[kimbottles]

Good thing JPL/NASA didn’t have music playing while the newest Rover landed on Mars today.

Ha! I thought I was the only one to watch. The "clean" feed from the control station was very interesting.

I love this stuff, can't wait for them to deploy the Webb Space Telescope currently scheduled for launch Oct 31, 2021
Then we have to wait a month just for it to get in position....

[Jamie]

Good thing JPL/NASA didn’t have music playing while the newest Rover landed on Mars today.

Ha! I thought I was the only one to watch. The "clean" feed from the control station was very interesting.

I love this stuff, can't wait for them to deploy the Webb Space Telescope currently scheduled for launch Oct 31, 2021
Then we have to wait a month just for it to get in position....

The difference in size and spectrum should be pretty amazing.

[H B]

Good thing JPL/NASA didn’t have music playing while the newest Rover landed on Mars today.

Ha! I thought I was the only one to watch. The "clean" feed from the control station was very interesting.

I love this stuff, can't wait for them to deploy the Webb Space Telescope currently scheduled for launch Oct 31, 2021
Then we have to wait a month just for it to get in position....

The difference in size and spectrum should be pretty amazing.

I watched it too. We had the house lights red to celebrate, just like the Empire State Building!

[BeauV]

Some of you may have noticed a massive decline in my activity on Facebook. I have become disgusted with what FB is doing to the web-based client as they have turned it into a dogs-breakfast. They've simply copied the features of their various competitors, attempted to squash them all into one interface, and in the process have destroyed the product's User Experience. This is a big issue. It foretells a time when FB will become unusable and abandoned by many. I've decided to only use the piece of garbage once a week, and primarily to reach MAYAN followers.

To a retired tech person like me, this is genuinely sad. We've watched greed destroy what was an excellent tool. It stands in stark contrast to Craig's List, which is still banging along making Craig more money than he can spend with a User Experience that current designers would say is an abject failure. But, no one has been able to supplant Craig's List. My background makes me particularly pissed off about this, as FB could have done just fine without all this rip-off and garbage.

An observation from Dave Bossen, the now-deceased Founder and CEO of Measurex - a great company: "There are only two industries that call their customers "users": drug dealers and computer people. It says a LOT about what companies in those industries think of their customers.

[Ish]

Some of you may have noticed a massive decline in my activity on Facebook. I have become disgusted with what FB is doing to the web-based client as they have turned it into a dogs-breakfast. They've simply copied the features of their various competitors, attempted to squash them all into one interface, and in the process have destroyed the product's User Experience. This is a big issue. It foretells a time when FB will become unusable and abandoned by many. I've decided to only use the piece of garbage once a week, and primarily to reach MAYAN followers.

To a retired tech person like me, this is genuinely sad. We've watched greed destroy what was an excellent tool. It stands in stark contrast to Craig's List, which is still banging along making Craig more money than he can spend with a User Experience that current designers would say is an abject failure. But, no one has been able to supplant Craig's List. My background makes me particularly pissed off about this, as FB could have done just fine without all this rip-off and garbage.

An observation from Dave Bossen, the now-deceased Founder and CEO of Measurex - a great company: "There are only two industries that call their customers "users": drug dealers and computer people. It says a LOT about what companies in those industries think of their customers.

I only signed up with FB (again - I had an account long ago) to get the feed from the R2AK, since that was the only option then. Now I'm thinking of letting it go again. My wife would be distraught since that's how she keeps in touch with family, but I have no use for it.

[SemiSalt]

Some of you may have noticed a massive decline in my activity on Facebook. I have become disgusted with what FB is doing to the web-based client as they have turned it into a dogs-breakfast. They've simply copied the features of their various competitors, attempted to squash them all into one interface, and in the process have destroyed the product's User Experience. This is a big issue. It foretells a time when FB will become unusable and abandoned by many. I've decided to only use the piece of garbage once a week, and primarily to reach MAYAN followers.

To a retired tech person like me, this is genuinely sad. We've watched greed destroy what was an excellent tool. It stands in stark contrast to Craig's List, which is still banging along making Craig more money than he can spend with a User Experience that current designers would say is an abject failure. But, no one has been able to supplant Craig's List. My background makes me particularly pissed off about this, as FB could have done just fine without all this rip-off and garbage.

An observation from Dave Bossen, the now-deceased Founder and CEO of Measurex - a great company: "There are only two industries that call their customers "users": drug dealers and computer people. It says a LOT about what companies in those industries think of their customers.

Ditto YouTube, IMHO.

Of course, ditto Microsoft Word, back in the day.

[BeauV]

snip....

Of course, ditto Microsoft Word, back in the day.

There is a reason I didn't use MSFT Word even when I worked at a company that would only allow Word on the Company laptops. (I also used a Macintosh which incensed the leadership. - Always the troublemaker.

[TheOffice]

I use it mostly to keep in touch with sailors and HS classmates, and Mayan (nice centerboard). FB classifieds supplement my craigslist shopping and are a great way to give away old furniture, sell appliances etc.