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Comment by ajxs | Hacker News Reader

Lots of the comments here are criticising this decision on the basis of News Corporation's very clear political involvement. While I share their sentiment regarding News Corporation and their blatant partisanship, I would like to highlight that Facebook is not an apolitical entity. My view is that anyone concerned about the blatant partisan politics of the Australian news media should be equally concerned about the political overreach of big tech. The latter being far more equipped for the propagation of information benefiting their own agenda.

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The two aren't comparable. News Corporation is political in the sense that they effectively decide who wins the next election in countries like Australia and the UK and all the political parties have to seek out their favour and pursue policies that meet with their approval to win. Facebook is political in the sense that they refused to use their power to tilt the last US presidential election towards the candidate the mainstream media wanted. That the media considers the latter to be the threat to democracy says a lot about who they think should actually control the country.

It would be extremely foolish to think that Facebook is an organisation without its own political agenda. Even this article itself contains an extremely politicised statement from the managing director of Google Australia and New Zealand, criticising the Australian government for their intervention in the free market. These companies make decisions like any other to maximise their power and profit. Unlike most companies however, they're in a position to use information to leverage their position. I presume your post is talking about Clinton?

Alphabet Inc. has made almost $27mil in campaign contributions, including contributing $1.6mil to Clinton's campaign in 2016. They've spent almost $89mil in lobbying since 1990. These big tech companies obviously have a stake in our democracy and choose to take an active role. Thinking they're impartial is incredibly naive.

> That the media considers the latter to be the threat to democracy says a lot about who they think should actually control the country.

I think they're both a threat to democracy. I believe that the Australian government should do all it can to limit the influence that multinational corporations have on our local political landscape, categorically. The only thing I fear more than partisan local media organisations, are partisan international media organisations that wield even more power. I don't for one second trust Facebook's own hidden agenda any more than I trust News Corporation's.

> they effectively decide who wins the next election in countries like Australia and the UK

Big claims require big evidence, and here you haven't given any.

Read about political history in those countries. The Cameron govt's press department was run by people from News Corp. Blair's meeting with Murdoch pre-97 was infamous. Cameron's meetings pre-2010 are infamous. Brown had numerous personal, and secret, meetings with Murdoch (and failed to convince Murdoch of his merits).

I don't go in for the conspiracy theories around Murdoch at all btw. But it is fairly clear that he has a substantial amount of contact with/control over politicians...it is just factually true (something that isn't obvious to people outside the UK, journalists are heavily involved in politics in the UK...going from journalism into politics and then back again or into PR/lobbying is done frequently).

None of your points are evidence of the earlier claim.

Your post follows the pattern of the earlier one that I replied to: you echo the mantra that Murdoch has control over politicians, and you again leap from claim into statement of truth without evidence, "it is just factually true".

Occasional meetings with politicians is not evidence of control, nor the higher claim given earlier in the thread, of deciding the outcome of elections.

> That the media considers the latter to be the threat to democracy says a lot about who they think should actually control the country.

A man who, when asked about whether or not he will accept the next election's result, responds with 'We'll see', is objectively a pretty serious threat to democracy.

Simply voicing that opinion (and never following through on it) makes him a threat to, at minimum the public perception of the legitimacy of democracy - since democracy is one of those things that only works when people believe in it.

He knows how to play the media that's for certain. For a grand total of $0 he was able to have his face on television and plant a seed of doubt against his opponents integrity. So much so that all some people can talk about is Trump. Meanwhile Bloomberg spent record amounts on campaigning and all I remember was that he was the stop and frisk guy

Completely spot on. They are both two sides of failure: one creating the garbage and the other that takes center-stage in its distribution.

What the Australian government can do about News Corp becomes a question of media freedom, whereas Facebook and Google peddling it doesn't introduce that ethical or legal complication.

I could be wrong here though -- happy to be corrected.

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