Facebook’s threat yesterday to stop Australians sharing news content on its platforms if the government forced big companies to pay local media outlets could leave us less well-informed and allow misinformation to flourish, experts have warned.
That shakedown leaves a lot of questions unanswered. We still don’t know what kind of content will qualify as news. And, most worryingly, we don’t know what social media platforms already rife with fake news, disinformation and conspiracy theories will look like when the legitimate stuff is gone.
A newsfeed without news
There’s a good chance that if Facebook carries through with its threat, most Australians won’t notice a huge change to their newsfeed in the short term at least. How much actual news a person might see on their feed tends to be influenced by a bunch of variables: what pages they like, what their friends engage with, even the time of day they’re scrolling.
Instead the impacts could hit particular demographic groups. Plenty of Australians do still rely on Facebook for news. The most recent Digital News Report for Australia found 57% of people get their news from social media, 39% from Facebook.
Queensland University of Technology digital media professor Axel Bruns said he was most concerned about people already disengaged from the news who might stumble on information through social media.
“There’s a large [number] of people encounter news serendipitously,” he says. “This could hurt people with limited interest in the news. They’re going to encounter a lot less news content.”
People who don’t otherwise read or watch the news tend to be younger and often tend to be of a lower socioeconomic status, Bruns said. For that group being able to incidentally get bits of news content from social media is hugely beneficial.
Those issues will be heightened if news content was blocked on Instagram, Curtin University’s lead of internet studies Tama Leaver said. Media companies increasingly try to reach a younger, more diverse audience on that platform by presenting news in novel ways, through videos and stories.
That loss of incidental interaction with news content will leave young Australians less informed about the state of the country.
Only fake news left
But here’s the other thing about those younger, less engaged news consumers. They tend to fall much easier for misinformation and conspiracy theories, the kind of garbage that’s been amassing on Facebook and which it has been totally incompetent removing.
Bruns and Leaver worry that when good, well-reported news is gone, the balance will tip towards disinformation and junk.
“If you want to look at one person who would benefit greatly from the lack of competition for real news you look at Clive Palmer,” Leaver says.
“He’s shown that you can sway a lot of people with consistent advertising that wouldn’t be counted as news.”
Yesterday the top Facebook link from an Australian page was by Craig Kelly, the Liberal backbencher who regularly uses his page to promote conspiracy theories about climate change and COVID-19.
Facebook has always been dominated by people like Kelly. The difference is if news from reputable outlets like the ABC is gone, he’s all that’s left.
It’s also unclear how Facebook would cut down on misinformation. It currently has fact-checking relationships in Australia which rely on local news outlets.
Will it happen?
Whether Facebook carries through with its threat is still a big if. It has refused local media requests and won’t go into the details of what content would be limited.
Its options are to either restrict certain domain names or put a blanket limit on Australian users from sharing news.
Bruns said there was an element of gamesmanship in Facebook’s tactics.
“What they’re trying to do is set a precedent,” he says. “So much of this is not about what happens in Australia, but sending a message to other regulators around the world in larger or more important markets.”
Leaver said while Facebook’s threat was, for now, just that, the government should take it very seriously. Facebook has little to lose by getting rid of news in Australia.
We, on the other hand, could be left with an even more poisoned social media landscape.
“I don’t think that’s a good thing for democracy,” Leaver says.
None of this has been or is about what is good or not good for the Australian public, not in the slightest. We’re just carcasses to be butchered and divvied up between the three main protagonists.
This is a battle between three global elephants, the oldest of whom is desperately trying to gorge itself on one last feed before it shuffles off to the elephant graveyard where old media companies go to die.
None of the elephants pays tax here and, truth be told, none of them gives a stuff about the country. It’s just a dusty stamping ground where they get to throw their weight around.
And the Australian government is a blood-sucking tick on the old elephant’s arse.
Except that the ABC and indeed Crikey, are unlikely to be banned because they’re not the proposed recipients of the legislation’s new fees levied on Facebook and Google.
So … there’ll still be plenty of news, from reputable sources, just not the ones who have twisted the government’s arm into proposing such a blatant rort.
“….. could leave us less well-informed“.
Geez, I don’t see much of a threat of that from here. It would only affect Murdoch news, the SMHAge, Channels 9, 7 and 10 largely, and what they provide does not make us ‘well-informed’, no matter how you cut that. You still have to slice and dice extensively in those publications to find something that was worth the read.
What it will do is reduce the effectiveness of political campaigns waged through media outlets, and they have not been in the national interest for the last 25 years.
Quite so DB, given that the government’s bias and malice has excluded the ABC and SBS from receiving any of the proposed compensatory income.
In fact, if Facebook wanted to get really, truly right up this government’s nose, they would declare they will block all Australian news sites, except for the ABC, SBS and, of course, Crikey and selected independents. Then listen to the squealing outrage from Canberra and the cronies.
Wouldn’t that be delicious! Someone should tell FB
I don’t have much time for the old media, and don’t use Facebook, largely because neither give can be trusted to provide a true picture of what is going on.
However, as I understand it, the legislation requiring Facebook and Google to negotiate payments with the media excludes the ABC and SBS, presumably because our coalition government wants to starve these organisations.
Surely we would all be better off if Facebook and Google simply continued to include the ABC and Google in their newsfeeds, while excluding the old media with whom they are required to negotiate payments.
The result would be some what similar to the inclusion of the industry super funds in the banking Royal Commission.
“or put a blanket limit on Australian users from sharing news.”
You mean just like Crikey does when you put a URL in a comment and your comment goes into infinite moderation, never to be seen.