Yves here. I’m leery of the term “free press” since it evokes libertarian themes like “free markets” that are intellectually incoherent as well as not very good for society at large. And the big problem is that the press is absolutely not free. It costs money to produce original news content. That the big reason why Naked Capitalism, as an itty bitty thinly resourced site, does way more news curation and commentary/analysis than original reporting: there’s still plenty of value to be added in mining facts found by others. But someone has to do the original information-gathering or else we’ll live even more in a world of dueling press releases than we do now.
The article does the useful service of debunking some of the attacks made on legislation in Australia and Maryland to try to curb the way Facebook and Google are hoovering Internet ad revenues away from the press.
By Steven Hill, director of the Political Reform Program for the New America Foundation. His book “Europe Rising” will be published by the University of California Press in 2009. Originally published at openDemocracy
From France to Australia to the US state of Maryland, the free press is waging a battle for survival against Facebook and Google. Besides being gushing firehoses of COVID-19 and election disinformation and QAnon conspiracies, another of Google and Facebook’s dangerous impacts is undermining the financial stability of media outlets all over the world. Where is the European Commission and the Biden administration in this fight? A lot is at stake, yet so far they have been quiet as church mice.
How do Google and Facebook threaten free press? These two companies alone suck up an astounding 60% of all online advertising in the US. With Amazon taking another 9%, that leaves a mere 30% of digital ad revenue to be split among thousands of media outlets, many of them local publications. With digital online advertising now comprising over half of all ad spending (and projected to grow further), this has greatly contributed to underfunded and failing news industries in country after country, including in Europe and the US.
Australia and Maryland
Australia’s situation is typical. Its competition commission found that, for every $100 spent by online advertisers in Australia, $47 goes to Google and $24 to Facebook,
even as traditional advertising has declined. Various studies have found that the majority of people who access their news online don’t go to the original news source, instead they access it via Facebook’s and Google’s platforms which are cleverly designed to hold users’ attention. Many users rarely click through the links, instead they absorb the gist of the news from the platforms’ headlines and preview blurbs.
Consequently, Facebook and Google receive the lion’s share of revenue from digital ads, rather than the original news sources receiving it. Note that Facebook and Google could tweak their design and algorithms to purposefully drive users to the original news sources’ websites. But they don’t.
So Australia decided to fight this duopoly with some rules of its own. A new law will require large digital media companies to fairly compensate Australian media companies for re-packaging and monetizing their proprietary news content. Media outlets around the world are watching to see how this plays out.
Google initially fought the proposal, but finally negotiated deals with Australian news publishers, beginning with media magnet Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, to pay them some compensation. But Facebook flexed its digital muscles by cutting off Australia entirely from its platform for several days, preventing Aussie news publishers as well as everyday users, including important government agencies like health, fire and crisis services, from posting, viewing or sharing news content.
The result was jarring, the proverbial ‘shot heard ‘round the world’. Facebook censored Australian users more effectively than the Chinese communist government ever could, prompting charges of ‘big tech authoritarianism’. Facebook finally relented to Australia’s requirement, in return for some vague and uncertain concessions. But the message of raw, naked platform power was unmistakably clear.
Before coming to its own settlement with News Corp and other publishers, Facebook set out to portray the Australian law as an insider job by Murdoch, to shake some money from the Big Tech Media tree. While there is undoubtedly some truth to that, this issue is much bigger than Murdoch, since media outlets in countries all over the world, both big and small, are seeing their financial well-beings drained away by Facebook and Google’s ad dominance. And a number of Australian media outlets besides News Corp have negotiated ad revenue-sharing deals with the digital platforms, including the Australian Broadcasting Corp, Seven West Media, Nine Entertainment, Schwartz Media and Solstice Media.
Now a similar battle is playing out in the US state of Maryland. Between 2008 and 2018, US newspapers’ advertising revenue declined by 62%, and without that funding, newsroom employment dropped by nearly half. Squeezed by these economics, Maryland approved the US’s first tax on digital ad revenue (earned inside its state borders), targeting companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon. The measure is projected to generate as much as $250m in its first year, dedicated to schools.
But this battle has only begun. Lawsuits against Maryland are being threatened by the tech giants, even as legislators from the states of Connecticut and Indiana have introduced similar measures.
The Bigger Picture: What’s at Stake
Nelson Mandela once said, “A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy…It must have the economic strength to stand up…[and] sufficient independence from vested interests to be bold and inquiring without fear.”
One of the most important, unsettled debates of the internet age is whether digital media platforms like Facebook, Google/YouTube and Twitter are the new ‘public square’, a kind of global free speech Agora, or just the latest techno variety of old-fashioned publishers and broadcasters. Or a hybrid in between.
Over the past year that debate has intensified, as there has been crisis after crisis. Following the US Capitol ransacking on 6 January, Facebook, Google, and Twitter all decided to discontinue ‘publishing’ the president of the United States. Before that, as the platforms tried to deal with their toxic pipeline of disinformation regarding the COVID pandemic, racial tensions and the presidential election, they slapped on warning labels and removed the inflammatory content of certain users.
Now, in response to Australia’s law, Facebook pulled the plug on an entire country! That’s something only a giant monopoly publisher can do. In 2014, when Spain enacted legislation requiring Google to pay Spanish news outlets for the article snippets in its search results, Google bullied the government and closed its news service there.
Even before the past year’s seminal events, Facebook, Google and Twitter acted as publishers by turning over crucial decisions to their ‘engagement’ algorithms about which content is featured at the top of users’ news feeds, and what is promoted and amplified. Its sophisticated ‘long tail’ publishing machine uses precise content-targeting to niche users, showing different content to different people, including political ads. These are not passive online chat boards. They are ‘robot publishers’, in which algorithms perform the essential duties of an editor. From a legal or accountability standpoint, it should matter little that there is a supercomputer behind the curtain instead of a human.
So it’s pretty difficult at this point to argue credibly that these platforms are not in some sense publishers. Big Tech platforms are increasingly using their considerable publisher power to decide what content, sources and values should disappear or be amplified. These companies have more in common with The New York Times, Bild and Rupert Murdoch than they do with an online wikiboard or free speech corner in London’s Hyde Park.
Indeed, Facebook’s and Google/YouTube’s algorithmically curated machines, with 2.6 billion and two billion users respectively, are the largest publisher and broadcaster in human history. Yet existing law does not treat these companies like a publisher or broadcaster, especially when it comes to liability or accountability. The digital media platforms hide behind the fact that they have billions of users generating content, which resembles a ‘common carrier’ or public square role. But that should not obscure the centrality of their publisher role.
From that perspective, Facebook, Google and Twitter are completely within their publisher’s rights to decide it does not want to publish Donald Trump any more, just as The New York Times would be. Or just as Rupert Murdoch has an editorial right to feature Boris Johnson on the front page of The Sun or at the top of a Fox News broadcast. Facebook’s Oversight Board should take note.
Threat to the Open Internet?
Critics of the Maryland and Australian approach claim it threatens the principle of an open internet. They also insist that traditional media outlets actually benefit when Facebook/Google/Twitter send user traffic back to the news outlets. The latter claim is easily debunked, since ad revenue at traditional media outlets has plummeted in the digital media platform era, while it has zoomed for the platforms. One study found that digital media traffic supplied less than 0.2% of total revenue to the news companies examined (while producing 24% of their total visitor traffic). So whatever revenue the traditional media outlets have received, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what they have lost.
And the ‘open internet’ principle must be balanced by the ‘copyright principle’, which was established years before the Internet was even invented. Copyright law mandates that any individual person or organization cannot swipe someone else’s content and monetize it without paying for it. The open internet principle essentially demands that traditional news sources bear the financial burden of continuing to produce quality news without fair compensation – much as it demanded that Napster be allowed to distribute copyrighted music for free without compensating musical artists and record companies.
The open internet principle is contributing to media financial instability throughout the world and taken to its logical conclusion will cannibalize what’s left of the news media. With no credible news sources to rely upon, the digital media platforms would be even more overrun by the barbarian disinformation for which the platforms have become notorious. They are eating their own seed.
Already the digital media platforms have turned thousands of publishers and broadcasters into little more than ghostwriters for their platform content. Facebook has transmogrified from its initial hip mission of being a convenient place to post your vacation and puppy pics, and re-find your long lost college roommate, into a ‘re-publisher’ that re-packages and monetizes product from the original producer without paying for it. In other industries, that’s called theft.
Democracies must stop this Big Steal before these companies do away with our democracies. France and Austria have passed similar laws, Canada says it will adopt the Australian approach, and possibly India too.
But the EU and US have been noticeably silent. Both are known for encouraging competition and a vibrant media, so you would think their regulators would jump into action to aid the free press. Unfortunately, the reaction from the Biden administration has been non-existent, though understandably it has a lot on its plate in its first months.
The European Commission’s silence has been more disappointing. Its two-year old Copyright Directive has been barely implemented, and now it’s championing its recently unwrapped Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act. But those anodyne proposals lack regulatory teeth and, like the GDPR, do not fundamentally challenge the digital platforms’ toxic business model.
It’s time for governments on both sides of the Atlantic to step up their games, and ensure that Big Tech media respect the sanctity of copyright and stop undermining the world’s media and news outlets.
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A passionate plea, but here is where the argument falls apart:
The author accuses platforms like Google and Facebook of monetizing content from original producers and calls it “Theft”. When the platforms were confronted with their so-called theft of content, they graciously offered to stop their theft of content by removing the offending content from their platforms. And what was the response? Charges of ‘big tech authoritarianism’ and an expression of ‘raw, naked platform power.’ In any other industry, people would be thrilled when thieves stop stealing – but in odd world of the author “not stealing” is just another word for “authoritarianism”.
Ah, but doesn’t this so called censorship cost the poor media platforms precious revenue and deny the public access to valuable news? No. According to Hill, the media traffic “supplied less than 0.2% of total revenue to the news companies examined (while producing 24% of their total visitor traffic).” This ‘big tech authoritarianism’ has minimal impact on media revenue. Their audience is still free to visit their website and drive 99.8% of the media revenue. So why the panic and anger?
Is it honest concern about democracy, and Nelson Mandela’s belief that “A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy”? You mean the same paper that publishes my horoscopes, crossword puzzles and my daily Garfield cartoon to sell ads? The press is not in the business of democracy, it’s in the business of running ads around any content that can attract eyeballs. But the eyeballs aren’t looking anymore and the ads aren’t selling.
I think one of the regular quotes from the daily Water Cooler is quite fitting: “They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.”
In the end, this issue is about monopoly power: the dying power of the local media monopoly, and the breakdown of their business model. The local media is shriveling because its customers – advertisers – are choosing of their own volition to spend their money somewhere else. But instead of doing the hard work and trying to win back their customers, they are using the last ounce of their political capital to impose rents on their competition.
There are viable media business models that do not rely on advertising revenue – Bloomberg being one of them. I have sympathy for people in the media industry who see jobs disappearing and stagnant salaries.
But instead of doing the hard work of rebuilding their business model for the 21st century, they have instead chosen “treachery”.
@WwivSysop
“Their audience is still free to visit their website and drive 99.8% of the media revenue. So why the panic and anger?”
Why? Because the snippet shown by the SE is often enough to avoid going to the host site.
A non-news example. Type AAPL into the goog, and the stock pricing is shown, in detail. No need to go anywhere else.
Good point. Newspapers have known this for many years. A headline gives nearly all readers everything they want. And for those few who want more, not many wade in any further than the first two paragraphs. Hence, even the tiniest summation of a story on one of the social media is going to capture nearly all the potential readers, who won’t bother to click on a link.
But WwivSysop makes a valid point here: “The press is not in the business of democracy, it’s in the business of running ads around any content that can attract eyeballs.” And this is why the press isn’t really free. Like TV news before cable, newspapers are driven to deliver a large cross section of moderately affluent readers to the bulk of its advertisers. And this crucially determines story selection and coverage for the most part.
If we as a nation want a truly free press, the market is no answer. I believe the only recourse is to go directly to the currency issuer and set up journalism as a true, rather than just a fanciful, fourth estate. That means (and, yes, I’m repeating myself) unfettered, unconditional and generous funding for four actual newspapers in ink on paper (indispensable for accountability) exercising the equivalent of a journalism Hippocratic oath across four openly stated political lines that fall into the imperfect but fairly well established Western categories of far left, center-left, center-right and far right. This model should probably be repeated at regional levels as well, directing sharp scrutiny at our many hopelessly corrupt and hardly covered state legislatures. People would be allowed to subscribe to any or all at no cost.
Never gonna happen, I know.
And for those few who want more, not many wade in any further than the first two paragraphs.
A typical news article will have a paragraph or two in the final third to quarter of the article that casts doubt on the entire premise of the headline and article to that point. It’s fascinating to behold.
This allows for the manufacturing of consent (calculated manipulation = lying) within the framework of the previously manufactured idea of “objective” journalism which the populace holds so dear.
Truth isn’t essential to any of these paradigms. They are all obfuscatory by design. In the interest of power.
Pelham: If we as a nation want a truly free press, the market is no answer. I believe the only recourse is to go directly to the currency issuer and set up journalism as a true, rather than just a fanciful, fourth estate. That means (and, yes, I’m repeating myself) unfettered, unconditional and generous funding for four actual newspapers
All that would achieve is accentuation of the current situation, with government-enforced entrenchment of the hegemony of Izvestia on the Hudson and Pravda on the Potomac as speakers of True News®, alongside increased suppression of anything outside that corporatocracy-approved range of viewpoints.
You’re a journalist. I was one till 2008 when, firstly, it became clear to me where things were going with Google and Facebook and, secondly, a piece I was working on — saying essentially the same things as Ed Snowden revealed in 2012 — got killed once Obama and the Dems got into power and it became clear the surveillance programs would continue.
News reporting — and actual investigative journalism, which editors and managers have hated for a long time before Google and Facebook — needs to find a new business model to support it.
As you say, platforms like BLOOMBERG, as well as others like the FT and STAT, have found a way forward, which has meant paywalls and well-heeled subscriber bases that’ll pay for the information they need.
Maybe ultimately the problem is the great American public, which gets the news it’s prepared to pay for?
To your point @TimH, platforms like Facebook and Google offered to stop posting snippets, thus ending their “theft” of content and forcing people to go directly to the host site to view headlines and news. Here is what the author of this article Steven Hill wrote in response:
My comment about “panic and anger” was directed at comments like Hill’s. Why do Hill and others resort to name calling and claims of ‘authoritarianism’ and censorship when platforms decide to stop their “theft” of content by banning the posting of snippets? Facebook’s move did not prevent people from going to the media website directly (which is impossible in China) and as Hill himself points out, this move will have very little impact on media revenue or visits to media websites. To my innocent ears, it sounded like Facebook and Google offered to give the media exactly what they demanded, so what is driving this vitriol?
I have never heard someone claim not stealing is authoritarian censorship until this debate about media and tech companies. To put it in a different context: Hill wrote a book, “Europe Rising” – if I pledge to never steal his book or post snippets online, am I “flexing my muscles” and engaging in “big tech authoritarianism”, as Hill accused Facebook of doing?
To me, the debate is not about whether snippets cost them money or not, it’s whether the media can impose a tax on another industry. Hill claims the finances of the media are being ‘drained away’ by Facebook and Google, as if Mark Zuckerberg is unfairly drinking the media’s milkshake from across the room through some impossibly long straw. In reality, people just aren’t buying what the media is selling anymore and are choosing better alternatives.
The media is not entitled to advertising revenue, just like they are not entitled to my subscription, and Hill is not entitled to my purchase of his book. They need to earn their money by providing goods and services people are willing to pay for, just like everyone else. Unfortunately, these former monopolists in the media just don’t know how, so in the words of Frank Herbert, they have no choice but to resort to treachery.
WwivSysop: The media is not entitled to advertising revenue, just like they are not entitled to my subscription, and Hill is not entitled to my purchase of his book.
Agreed. However ….
WwivSysop: In reality, people just aren’t buying what the media is selling anymore and are choosing better alternatives.
Here, you’re funny. What better alternatives are people choosing?
The NYT, for instance, is financially successful. A glance back to the NYT of even thirty years ago and the standard of writing and reporting it had then — censored and establishment-constrained as it was — reveals what a pile of incompetent, amateur manure it is today. It is, nevertheless, by your definition “providing goods and services people are willing to pay for.”
The ‘media’ were in big trouble before Google/Facebook and the reason was the arrival of precisely the kind of neoliberal ‘the Market rules’ management regimes that you advocate. Furthermore, Google and Facebook are free-riding on the content the media provides, such as the content is. They should pay some kind of fee for that content or drop it entirely — some kind of micropayments system might be the desired solution.
“But the EU and US have been noticeably silent. Both are known for encouraging competition and a vibrant media”
Huh?
Otherwise the author makes good sense.
Couldn’t help but think back a couple of hundred years to McCullough v Maryland “the power to tax is the power to destroy”
Martin Gurri also comes to mind – is the power to manufacture consent changing hands?
Is that what this is about? Rupert Murdoch=quality news? Seriously?
I’m with Taibbi and Greenwald re the current state of journalism so no need to rehash those arguments.
From France to Australia to the US state of Maryland, the free press is waging a battle for survival against Facebook and Google..
Or is it a fight between Billionaires? Rupert Murdoch want his advertising revenue back, after this high tech purchase went belly up?
Murdoch has a better relationship with Salacious Mud than with Truth.
From the point of view of the Blob, the Deep State, the Establishment, whatever you want to call it – a giant monopoly may be much easier to control than a bunch of independent producers.
Back in The Good Old Days, not so long ago, publishing news was hard. For one thing, you needed a printing press, which was expensive and required specialized staff to operate it. Not only that, but a printing press cost money for every sheet of paper printed, and you had to spend more money on distribution.
They say that “freedom of the press belongs to those who own one” but there’s more! Unless you planned to publish as an expensive and time-consuming hobby (or as a PR expense, somewhat like the WaPo and NYT), you needed an income stream. You would get some money from subscriptions, but subscriptions are really a means to sell advertising. Dependence on advertising meant that there were some people the publisher had to keep happy, and others he could not afford to annoy.
Anyone who knows anything about local news knows this. At best, it’s a tightrope walk between giving subscribers the news they want to know, and not infuriating your advertisers. The result was a sort of natural censorship. Publishers had to think long and hard before they published anything that would tork the bigwigs off. The fact that a publisher was tied to a physical location and physical assets also made lawsuits, both real and nuisance, that much easier.
The internet changed all that. Now, any anonymous toolio with a laptop and WiFi can go into the news publishing business by nightfall, and with worldwide distribution and advertising revenue, to boot. Marginal cost of readership is zero. Needless to say, this development has The People That Matter very concerned, and they are working hard to stuff that genie back into the bottle.
It’s not just the internet media that is a problem.
The US had very diverse media outlets catering for all tastes.
Clinton passed legislation that allowed the US media to consolidate to a point where it was nearly all owned by six companies.
These corporations could control the narrative from the US media.
You may not like Fox, but they have to show there is some diversity in the US media; otherwise it would be too obvious.
Everything was nicely under control.