Topic: End of facebook?

[Bobsackamano]

I think this will be set a bad precedent if Governments lobbied by mainstream media (people like Rupert Murdoch)  start interfering in the free internet. I agree FB do take my data and sell it to advertisers, but I am still not paying directly. Better than the subscription fees lot of these mainstream media outlets charge.

And I honestly prefer getting my news from independent content creators I like on Youtube, rather than biased media like MSNBC and FOX.

Why would this legislation interfere with the "free internet"?

[Skeeve]

Taken at face value like that it does seem Facebook may be getting shafted.

A very simplistic counter argument would run something like this. Facebook runs this platform where everyone hangs out, the genius of this is that Facebook does nothing but facilitate other people (the users) to create the content. So Facebook create nothing, but now because everyone hangs out there they cream in all the advertising that used to go to the old media who are the ones that create the news.

Now boo hoo many people would say however if we consider that a healthy media ecosystem should contain high quality news then we have a problem as their sales have all been smashed as well by the internet and social media. So the government have said this new tech has come along and fucked up the news part of the old media. However its good thing for a country to have a healthy news media so how do we pay for this. Well lets get that new tech to pay up some dough, they actually create nothing of any actual worth and are just running a little monopoly extracting wealth from this country so lets squeeze them.

That's an extremely biased way of looking at it though, social media and search engines drive a load of traffic to those sites already, so they are already getting the benefit and are now seeking to get paid on top of it. Don't forget that the part on FB or a search engine is not the content, merely a link, a thumbnail and a snippet, the latter bits being controlled by the site rather than the social media platform i.e. they could easily block all beyond a simple link if they thought doing so would drive traffic their way more effectively.

[Jiminy Cricket]

That's an extremely biased way of looking at it though, social media and search engines drive a load of traffic to those sites already, so they are already getting the benefit and are now seeking to get paid on top of it. Don't forget that the part on FB or a search engine is not the content, merely a link, a thumbnail and a snippet, the latter bits being controlled by the site rather than the social media platform i.e. they could easily block all beyond a simple link if they thought doing so would drive traffic their way more effectively.

But it is even worse than this. News Corp, etc. wish to be paid for content they willingly post themselves to facebook. At face value - and unless there are additional compelling facts to the contrary - that's plain bonkers. If News Corp wish to be paid for the content they themselves decide to share at facebook, but facebook are unwilling to pay for the content, then News Corp have the option to stop posting the fucking content.

I can't quite believe I am on facebook's side in any dispute, but this law makes no sense whatsoever.

[Bobsackamano]

That's an extremely biased way of looking at it though, social media and search engines drive a load of traffic to those sites already, so they are already getting the benefit and are now seeking to get paid on top of it. Don't forget that the part on FB or a search engine is not the content, merely a link, a thumbnail and a snippet, the latter bits being controlled by the site rather than the social media platform i.e. they could easily block all beyond a simple link if they thought doing so would drive traffic their way more effectively.

Well it is completely biased as ive admitted im completely biased on this subject, i was just trying to outline the counter argument to another poster who said they couldnt see one.

I dont particulary care how Facebook gets a kicking, i just want to see it get a kicking. The ideal outcome for me is this escalates and Facebook is unable to operate in Australia at all. That wont happen though as the last thing that Facebook wants is a western country showing the rest of the world that you would lose very little if it simply didnt exist at all and that they were shown to be an emperor with no clothes.

[BarryCrocker]

Massive changes regarding defamatory free speech.

News sites are liable for defamatory Facebook comments, rules Australia’s High Court
The ruling could make comment sections too risky to leave turned on

Media companies in Australia can be held responsible for defamatory comments left on their social media pages by members of the public, the country’s High Court has ruled.

The decision is part of a long-running defamation case that could have huge consequences for Australia’s media industry, forcing news sites to strictly moderate or remove comments on stories shared on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. Writing in The Conversation, David Rolph, a professor of law at the University of Sydney, said the ruling “may mean anyone who runs a social media page can theoretically be sued over disparaging comments posted by readers or random group members — even if you aren’t aware of the comment.”

The ruling (which can be read in full here) is part of a defamation lawsuit brought against a number of outlets, including The Australian and Sky News, by Australia’s Dylan Voller. Shocking photographs of Voller being restrained at a youth detention center went viral in 2016 and led to an inquest into the conditions at such centers. Many news outlets covered the story and shared their articles on Facebook. In 2017, Voller sued three of these companies, arguing that comments left on their Facebook pages in reaction to these stories were defamatory, and that, by inviting these comments, the news outlets were legally their publishers.

It’s this second point which has proved particularly contentious, but a number of courts have found in favor of Voller’s argument. These include the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 2019 and the New South Wales Court of Appeal in 2020. This latest ruling, a 5-2 decision by Australia’s High Court, seems to settle this particular element of the case, establishing that media companies are indeed the “publishers” of third-party Facebook comments and can be held legally responsible for their content. However, Voller still has to prove that the comments themselves were defamatory, while media companies can now marshal new defenses under defamation law.

Although Voller’s case is not yet over, Australian media companies are extremely worried by the wider implications of the High Court’s ruling. A spokesperson for Nine, one of the companies sued by Voller, said the decision “will have ramifications for what we can post on social media in the future.” Michael Miller, executive chairman at News Corp Australia, another firm targeted in the case, said the finding “highlights the need for urgent legislative reform” that will “bring Australian law into line with comparable western democracies.”

As Miller noted in comments reported by MediaWeek: “The decision by the High Court in the Voller case is significant for anyone who maintains a public social media page by finding they can be liable for comments posted by others on that page even when they are unaware of those comments.”

The ruling may even effect individuals posting on personal social media pages, said Rolph in comments to The Sydney Morning Herald. The decision “obviously has implications for ordinary users of social media platforms, because they can be held liable as publishers where they post material to their Facebook pages and encourage engagement,” he noted.

Media companies argued that they could not be the publishers of Facebook comments as they were unaware of their content. “To be a publisher, one must intend to communicate the matter complained of,” they wrote in a submission from February 2021. They also noted that at the time of the lawsuit, Facebook didn’t allow publishers to turn off comments underneath posts at all (the company only added this feature in March this year).

The High Court responded by noting that when media companies created and maintained public Facebook pages they were showing their “intentional participation in the process” of sharing third-party comments. “[T]he appellants’ attempt to portray themselves as passive and unwitting victims of Facebook’s functionality has an air of unreality,” wrote two of the justices, Stephen Gageler and Michelle Gordon, in a judgement. “Having taken action to secure the commercial benefit of the Facebook functionality, the appellants bear the legal consequences.”

A big question is what effect this ruling will have on the operations of media companies in other parts of the world. Thanks to the internet’s global reach, rulings in one nation can quickly have a knock-on effect internationally, and in the US, there are already huge debates about whether websites should be held liable for what users post (arguments which often revolve around the all-important Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act).

It’s important also that Australia is often seen as a test bed for online regulation, able to enact sweeping changes that have a big effect on how companies operate online. Earlier this year, for example, the country’s competition watchdog forced tech companies to pay Australian media companies to use their content, leading Facebook to briefly block all Australian users from sharing news articles on the site. In this particular case, the law was later changed and old functionality resumed, but it demonstrates how quickly what we think of as the normal operating standards of the internet can be altered.

With this High Court ruling, comment sections in Australia may simply be seen as too costly to moderate and so turned off for good. However, recent changes to defamation law in the country, which came into effect in some states on July 1st, have raised the barrier for defamation suits, and could potentially act as a counterweight to the decision.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/8/22662191/australia-high-court-facebook-comments-legal-liability-publisher-ruling-voller

[Red Beret]

Only skimmed that, what about the comments section on YouTube? It can be a cesspit.

[BarryCrocker]

Only skimmed that, what about the comments section on YouTube? It can be a cesspit.

The decision “obviously has implications for ordinary users of social media platforms, because they can be held liable as publishers where they post material to their Facebook pages and encourage engagement,”

 I'd assume, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram fall under the social media platforms banner.

[Red Beret]

I'd assume, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram fall under the social media platforms banner.

Ah, right. As I see it though, I don't see why media companies should be responsible when its the platforms failing to police themselves? Smacks of passing the buck.

[BarryCrocker]

From the No Shit Sherlock Files.

Facebook aware of Instagram’s harmful effect on teenage girls, leak reveals

Social media firm reportedly kept own research secret that suggests app worsens body image issues.

Facebook has kept internal research secret for two years that suggests its Instagram app makes body image issues worse for teenage girls, according to a leak from the tech firm.

Since at least 2019, staff at the company have been studying the impact of their product on its younger users’ states of mind. Their research has repeatedly found it is harmful for a large proportion, and particularly teenage girls.

“We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said a slide from one internal presentation in 2019, seen by the Wall Street Journal. “Thirty-two per cent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” a subsequent presentation reported in March 2020.

Another slide said: “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression. This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.”

Comprised of findings from focus groups, online surveys and diary studies in 2019 and 2020, the Instagram research shows for the first time how aware the company is of its product’s impact on the mental health of teenagers. And yet, in public, executives at Facebook, which has owned Instagram since 2012, have consistently downplayed its negative impact on teenagers.

As recently as March, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, claimed social media was more likely to have positive mental health effects. In May, Adam Mosseri, who is in charge at Instagram, said he had seen research suggesting its effects on teenagers’ mental health was probably “quite small”.

In a “mental health deep dive”, marketing and product design executives and data scientists at Facebook concluded that some of the problems, such as “social comparison”, were specific to Instagram and not replicated by other platforms.

“Aspects of Instagram exacerbate each other to create a perfect storm,” said one internal report, which said pressure to share only the best moments and to look perfect could pitch teenagers into depression, low self-esteem and eating disorders.

Among the most concerning findings was that among users who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% in the UK and 6% in the US traced them back to Instagram. Another transatlantic study found more than 40% of Instagram users who reported feeling “unattractive” said the feeling began on the app; about a quarter of the teenagers who reported feeling “not good enough” said it started on Instagram.

Facebook’s internal conclusions echo a number of studies that implicate social media in an epidemic of mental health problems among young people. In 2017, YoungMinds and the Royal Society for Public Health published research singling out Instagram as having the most negative impact on young people’s mental wellbeing of all social networks. Emma Thomas, the charity’s chief executive, said that while social media could be beneficial, it also came with increased pressures.

“Being surrounded by constant images of the ‘perfect’ life and seemingly perfect bodies can also have a big impact on how you feel about your own life and appearance, and it can be really hard not to compare yourself to others,” Thomas said.

A spokesperson for 5Rights Foundation, which campaigns for changes to digital services to make them more suitable for children and young people, said: “Facebook’s own research is a devastating indictment of the carelessness with which it, and the tech sector more broadly, treats children.

“In pursuit of profit these companies are stealing children’s time, self-esteem and mental health, and sometimes tragically their lives … This is an entirely human-made world, largely privately owned, designed to optimise for commercial purposes – it does not have to be like this. It is time to optimise for the safety, rights and wellbeing of kids first – and then, only then – profit.”

Facebook declined to comment, but sent the Guardian a link to a blog post by Instagram’s head of public policy, Karina Newton. She said the WSJ story had “focused on a limited set of findings and casts them in a negative light”.

“Issues like negative social comparison and anxiety exist in the world, so they’re going to exist on social media too,” Newton said. “That doesn’t change the fact that we take these findings seriously, and we set up a specific effort to respond to this research and change Instagram for the better.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/14/facebook-aware-instagram-harmful-effect-teenage-girls-leak-reveals

[A-Bomb]

Ive deleted my profile at the weekend - haven't missed it one bit. There is a really dangerous addictive element to dipping in and out of it, which is perpetuated by the deliberately regular pings of notifications to draw you back in, before you are aware - facebook have altered your behaviours where you begin automatically checking the app morning noon and night.

I actually find it quite a toxic platform, where some people feel the need to present their entire lives on there, others present what they want the world to see (positives) others simply crave acknowledgement in the form of likes etc....

Like i said, have not missed it one bit - and when you remove yourself you can adequately judge just how much added value it did bring to your life - for me, not very much other than the odd advert bringing to my attention something I had perhaps not seen or would have explored myself. The rest is a sea of turgid shite.

[LFC_R_BOSS]

Deleted mine in jan when it caused a load of trouble between me and the bird as I was friends with a girl she’d fell out with . Ended up deleting and blocking the girl but then realised that would cause more murder so deactivated it . Have not missed it one bit .
I’ll go back on at some point and collect all the photos I want and then most likely get rid .
It’s toxic , plus no surprise anymore when you actually see someone in the street.  You already know they are pregnant , married etc .

[Jshooters]

Deleted mine in jan when it caused a load of trouble between me and the bird as I was friends with a girl she’d fell out with . Ended up deleting and blocking the girl but then realised that would cause more murder so deactivated it . Have not missed it one bit .
I’ll go back on at some point and collect all the photos I want and then most likely get rid .
It’s toxic , plus no surprise anymore when you actually see someone in the street.  You already know they are pregnant , married etc .

Yeah I got rid about 6 months ago as I’d had enough of seeing people’s shit opinions in comments sections and charging in to get involved…mental health much better since then!

[Elmo!]

Deleted it a few years ago. No regrets.

[BarryCrocker]

Facebook goes Meta: Zuckerberg announces new corporate name

While Facebook will still be the name for the blue-colored social media app, Meta will be the umbrella company that also includes Instagram and WhatsApp.

Facebook is reshuffling its names under a rebranded corporate parent: Meta.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the change Thursday, saying he wanted a new brand and a clearer corporate naming scheme to help focus on what's next for the internet beyond social media.

The rebrand comes as Facebook faces a deluge of news stories and public scrutiny based on thousands of internal corporate documents obtained by news organizations, including NBC News. The documents, originating with former Facebook product manager and whistleblower Frances Haugen, reveal internal employee dissent over the platform's policies.

The change won't affect the name of the company's signature blue-colored app, which will keep the name Facebook. But it will mean a new identity for the corporate umbrella that also owns Instagram and WhatsApp.

Together with the app Messenger, Meta will own and control four of the most popular smartphone apps in the world.

The name is a nod to the idea of the "metaverse," a term for a potential future internet that emphasizes virtual spaces. Zuckerberg said the metaverse will be the internet's "next frontier."

"Facebook is one of the most-used products in the history of the world. It is an iconic social media brand, but increasingly, it just doesn’t encompass everything we do," he said in an online presentation.

"I want to anchor our work and our identity in what we are building towards," he said.

Facebook's focus on the idea of a metaverse has a lot of precedent in other tech companies, from the virtual world Second Life founded in 2003 to the online gaming platform Roblox. It's also been the subject of numerous science fiction novels and films such as "Ready Player One."

Zuckerberg, who has a longtime interest in studying classical Greece and Rome, noted that "meta" is Greek for "beyond."

The company’s stock ticker will also change from FB to MVRS as of Dec. 1, CNBC reported.

The creation of Meta is reminiscent of Google's decision in 2015 to restructure under a new corporate parent named Alphabet. That change separated Google's search engine and advertising businesses from other, unproven projects, such as the development of autonomous vehicles.

In 2019, Facebook shifted its branding strategy to emphasize the name Facebook, adding labels to the Instagram and WhatsApp apps to make the relationship clearer to users. It did so at the same time that lawmakers and other critics of Facebook were calling on the government to break up the company — which the Federal Trade Commission is now asking a federal court to do.

The Verge, a tech news website, reported in mid-October that Facebook planned to announce a name change to "focus on building the metaverse."

"Over the next five years or so, in this next chapter of our company, I think we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company," Zuckerberg told the website in July.

The announcement of the new name and structure came at the end of a presentation on the company's plans for virtual and augmented reality. Zuckerberg walked through some uses of an immersive virtual experience, from gaming and pretend surfing to work meetings, digital concerts and exercise.

"You're going to be able to do almost anything you can imagine," Zuckerberg said.

"Teleporting around the metaverse is going to be like clicking a link on the web," he said.

Marne Levine, the company’s chief business officer, also invoked antiquity as another application of the metaverse, saying Meta's customers could transport to ancient Rome or other times in history.

"Imagine standing on the streets, hearing the sounds, visiting the markets, to get a sense of the rhythm of life over 2,000 years ago," she said.

Facebook moved into the virtual reality sector with its purchase of the company Oculus VR in 2014 for $2 billion. Its Oculus headsets now form the basis for Zuckerberg's metaverse plans, and he said he plans to continue selling the headsets at cost or at a loss to try to build up the number of users.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-goes-meta-zuckerberg-announces-major-restructuring-rcna3605

[DilanGlass]

I stopped using facebook 5 years ago. Best decision ever

[Zlen]

Stopped using any social media network three years ago. Did wonders for my mental health.