Group calls for Facebook, Instagram boycott on Aug. 23 and 24 - eviltoast
  • Woofcat@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I find this outrage so funny. “Hey you give me $500 for this used Timmies cup?” “No” “How dare you!”

    Why would Meta / Google want to pay 250+ million dollars a year to link to news sites? Do you think they’re generating billions of dollars in revenue from those links?

    • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Give 'em a break, they’re just following the capitalist’s mantra: Find something that’s currently free and charge people for it like it’s supposed to be that way.

    • esty@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      they show ads next to summaries of articles which, hey, blame the people for only reading the summary instead of clicking through to the source

      but they do profit and I would like to see journalism Not become yet another Meta™ product

      • Woofcat@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        But the news org provides that summary with the page to Facebook… it’s part of the Open Graph Protocol which… is for facebook. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Platform#Open_Graph_protocol

        Lets look at the source of a CBC News story.

        https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid-variant-ba-2-86-1.6943005

        property=“og:description” content=“A highly mutated variant of the virus behind COVID-19 has popped up in multiple countries, but scientists aren’t yet sure whether it will fuel a fall wave of infections or simply fizzle out.”/>

        So if the news companies are upset that Facebook is showing a summary… maybe stop providing a summary to facebook explicitly in your code?

        • EhForumUser@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Whoa, whoa. We spent good money on developers to add OpenGraph support to our news platform in order for us to have full control over what is shown on Facebook. Now you want us to just throw that away? Do you know how much software developer time costs? There must be a better solution. What if, and hear me out… Facebook paid us to use that work we did?

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      What you mean is, why are they ALREADY paying Australia for the same thing and suddenly don’t want to pay Canada?

      The answer will enlighten you.

      • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Because they signed that law before Meta and Google promised shareholders they’d be more efficient with their spending and laid off tens of thousands of employees?

        Because they actually came to an agreement instead of the Australian government saying “you’ll pay what we tell you to”?

        Wow, so enlightened.

    • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Seriously, why the hell are people blaming Meta/Google and not their government for trying to push the shittiest deal on them for a product I doubt makes them much money at all?

      “You pay our news sites an amount at the end of the year, and if you disagree on the amount we’ll be the arbitrator.” Only an idiot would make that deal.