What's changed is that people are so focused on harming Meta that they're willing to set a precedence for a link tax.

The commenters here used to be able to separate their disdain for Company X from the actual subject of importance.

Disliking Facebook shouldn't have you supporting government overreach. Defending people or groups you don't like is how you know you have actual convictions.

The situation has changed a lot since then, so peoples attitudes have shifted accordingly.

The article is talking about a link tax, or put another way: Italy forcing a website to pay for the privilege of referring traffic to the referees who benefit from the additional traffic when their mutual users link to news sites.

The only reason this is getting applauded by anyone is because the enforcement target is Facebook and years of the news media using their voice to complain loudly and religiously about their business competition (social media) has primed the pump for bad laws like this.

You can go back and view the threads on Bill C-18 and see the change in attitude

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37353770

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35134751

nah facebook definitely was not hated on since the beginning… if you mean “meta” specifically, then yes, i actually agree. kinda like a “prince turning his name into a symbol” jump-discontinuous moment that marked the changing of the tides.