This is similar to what Spain did in 2014 when passed a law to make Google pay for the news they published on Google News. Google closed the Spanish version of the site. There hasn't been a Google News for Spain since then.

https://www.rt.com/news/201031-spain-google-tax-law/

I reply because this illustrates a part of the problem, actually many of the problems with news and Google and FB.

I have no idea about who RT is. For me it's only a random site linked from a search engine. It could be a news giant or a one man company. I remember the original fact so I trust the article. If this was new to me I would have to cross check with other sources but I don't always have the time to do it.

They are as trustworthy as any other. You've an axe to grind.

Whether you choose to trust them or not, they have a history of publishing content that is false and serves to advance and protect Russia's interests.

One such example on the Skripal poisoning: https://www.rt.com/news/452946-skripal-anniversary-truth-nov...

If you want you can read more about RT and Sputnik here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/research-analysis/wea...

I don't trust them, in very much the same way I don't trust any other media outlet, since you'll find similar stories for any other online newspaper.

But by singling them out, you make it sound like they are the worst, when they are basically average

>trustworthy as any other

>are basically average

These two claims you made are incorrect. Honestly this is a bit bizarre.

>They are as trustworthy as any other.

This is incorrect. Their "reporting" on certain events like Russia's downing of MH17 give this away. Is there any specific points of reporting on MH17 done by RT or associate agencies like Sputnik you view as trustworthy?

I'd love to hear you out fully.

Please point us to a trustworthy source of information.

You can’t. There aren’t any.

That's not really the point is it, of course no organisation can be trusted 100%, but that doesn't mean that Russia's state sponsored propaganda network and actual commercial news organisations are the same. I can literally provide you links to RT doing exclusive interviews with people who have carried out chemical weapons attacks in the UK to provide a cover for the Russian government[1]. Let's not pretend that's the same as real news organisations who sometimes get things wrong.

[1]: https://www.rt.com/news/438350-petrov-boshirov-interview-sim...

Good

I hope something good is implemented to favor local news agencies. I don't use facebook but I see how google get benefits of the other news channels. I mostly go to abc, news.com.au directly for news headlines. But I know lot of my friends use facebook for the latest news. This does not benefit the original content creator.

Why? I have no sympathy at all News Corp and Nine Entertainment. No one is forcing them to share content on Facebook if they don't like the deal. This is pretty clearly old media trying to shake down new media.

(And tell your friends to stop using Facebook for news and go to a real news site.)

I think one argument is that the news papers do the recording, then if you share a link Facebook scrapes it, takes the image and puts it on their site (regardless of copyright/licensing status) and takes the news headline.

Most users then don’t click through, but the content is stolen to fill up facebooks timeline.

You can stop Facebook scraping your site via robots.txt, so the control is at the publisher. If FB crawler is blocked then it can't scrape anything and only the link is posted.

For anyone confused, ABC here is the Australian Broadcast Corporation, which is Australia's national news network, mostly government funded. Not to be confused with the ABC, the American Broadcast Company.

It's not local news pushing for this, it's being pushed by Murdoch's media empire.

Based on the poor (some would say downright disgusting) quality of their content - they absolutely do not deserve even the funding they currently have.

I don't really watch the news and not from Australia originally even though I live here, so forgive my stupid question: is there local news in Australia? I've never heard of any.

There's definitely local news but you'll find more locally specific programming on radio or in newspapers than on TV.

On TV the ABC, Channel 7, Channel 9 and Channel 10 all have state-specific broadcasts and newsrooms while SBS runs a single national program. Because the capital cities in Australia make up such a large proportion of the population you will rarely get "local news" on TV if you live in a regional town or area.

Most regional and local papers are owned by either News Corp or Australia Community Media (which was formerly owned by Fairfax before they were acquired by Nine) though, so even these local news outlets rely on the big players.

If you live in Melbourne's north I recommend trying to get a hold of "The Local Paper", which is an independent paper that focuses on things like what the local council gets up to. It's a pretty different experience to reading one of the big mastheads.

Let's not forget that other major centres have their own tv studios and broadcasts: Wollongong, Newcastle, Mackay, Townsville, and probably many others.

Similar for radio. ABC has local radio programs that are bulked with national programs. Triple J supports up and coming artists and alternative tastes, is ABC funded, and has local productions including in country towns around the country.

The real issue here is Facebook and Google scalping the news content and reselling it as their own.

The bigger issue is that Murdoch media undermines everything and needs to be broken up.

There are a bunch of different TV networks, some with local news. I must admit I haven't kept track for a good decade or so, it's possible they've all died out.

I would say local newspapers and radio are the majority of local news sources though.

The ABC also has a strong local presence, with 50+ regional radio stations and their websites.

Nobody makes any money off of news these days. Publishers are just looking for someone to milk and they, of course, go after whoever has the biggest pocketbooks.

Here's a good read on the fate of a US publisher that illustrates what has happened over the last 10 years to publishers

https://digiday.com/media/caught-in-the-mushy-middle-how-qua...