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Comment by entuno | Hacker News Reader

Has the Canadian government exempted articles about the wildfires from fees? If not, they don't really have any right to complain that Facebook doesn't want to pay to share them.

At the end of the day, they're a private company who are looking to make a profit, not an emergency broadcast system.

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it's so freaking disingenuous when hyperregulatory twerps pass this kind of crap, then wait for a disaster, then soyface at facebook like "see what they're doing!! this is a critical natural disaster tool!" well then maybe yall shouldn't've broken the business model, geniuses. i neither use nor like facebook but this is an obvious mistake.

The problem is that companies that successfully become monopolies like this - especially over critical public functions like communication - shouldn't be allowed to be private. At that point, they've made themselves utilities.

But the free marketeers have such a grip on public policy here in North America that the governments aren't able to take the appropriate regulatory action: Either nationalize them and make them a utility or break up the monopoly so you don't have a behemoth with so much power over a critical function like communication.

Sorry, but the idea that Facebook, or even Meta generally, has a monopoly on communication is absurd on its face.

It has a monopoly on certain forms of connection and communication. You could easily say the same thing about telephone companies, that it was "absurd" that they had a monopoly on communication - after all, people communicate in many other ways beyond the telephone: mail, face to face, telegram, and so forth. But we still treated the telephone companies as having a monopoly on a critical form of communication. And we took the appropriate steps: broke them up or treated them as utilities.

Facebook has over 3 billion users. Nearly 40% of Earth's population. Many of whom communicate more actively through it than they do with telephones, mail, or any of the other forms of communication that we treat as public utilities. It absolutely fits the bill.

Having a lot of users doesn’t make one a monopoly. Having the only way to communicate makes you a monopoly. People can type in www.cnn.com and get their news just fine.

This. I don't use Facebook at all and have tons of other pathways for communications.

As i understand it, the law that would require them to pay has not come into effect yet

The law exempting them from paying fees hasn’t even been drafted yet

Here in Brazil they tried to sneak in similar provisions into a fake news law. They actually preempted Facebook's move by simply writing into law that social media companies have no right to block the links as retaliation.

Then block users! Governments have nothing on tech talent and that’s their loss

Oh I wish FAANG would just rangeban my entire country due to the dictatorial politicians and judges. I bet WhatsApp alone could generate enough pressure to bring these people to their knees. I mean, Google posted a small link against the law in the search page and they hit them with a totally arbitrary $200k per hour fine for "abuse of market position" until they removed it. You'd think they wouldn't want to be in a country with literal power tripping supreme court judges ordering censorship left and right.

The truth is of course they're making far too much money to give a shit and would rather obey and make slightly less money instead of leaving and making zero.

I love rules. But they often get perverted into something terrible and ugly by people who only want to exert power over others.

I love the first order effects. I love the second order effects. I love the weird edge cases.

Then some power hungry sociopath comes into the room and belches "serve me" and vomits a rule onto the ground. It's clear they haven't thought about this any further than simply wanting the masses to bow down to them. Do they even know what rules are?

While I am definitely sympathetic towards anyone who's business model is impacted by Facebook, and I think that the honorable thing for Facebook to do here is take the hit and let sharing of forest fire news, ultimately this is exactly what Canada (a sovereign country ruled by the people) wanted.

This isn't some weird third order emergent property of their rule. They demanded something from Facebook and now they're getting it. If that makes them sad (to get exactly what they asked for) then it's kind of a personal issue.

>ultimately this is exactly what Canada (a sovereign country ruled by the people) wanted

I'm not a fan of Facebook but I totally support their position and what's even crazier now is that the CBC and others who pushed this are now asking the Canadian Gov to sue Facebook because of this.

It's typical behavior of a Gov/Society that is protectionist.They cheered when Trudeau and Freeland made all the Telcos Canadian media companies to protect them from competition (American). Canadians typically cut their nose off to spite their face, there is a long list of everything from dairy, eggs, duty free allowances when crossing the border, etc that they vehemently supported during NAFTA II (because America sucks) that they now complain about. All I can say is enjoy the cost of your mobile rates, food prices, 1.80 CAD a liter for fuel.

Just saying...

Jesus christ, can you suck the corporate teet any harder here?

God forbid a corporate entity can't just run amok in a country and do whatever it wants.

No, at the end of the day, they are SO BIG that they are more like a public place/space, where you cannot really dictate your own rules, even as a owner of such place (for example restaurants is some countries. cell phone network operators.). FB should really cut the bullshit.

> they are SO BIG that they are more like a public place/space, where you cannot really dictate your own rules

The Canadian government disagrees. They think Facebook stands to have significant financial gain for the privilege of their users sharing Canadian news sites, to the point where Facebook has to pay a fee for that privilege.

You can't simultaneously say "Facebook is a public place, people should be allowed to post whatever they want" and also "Facebook should have to pay a fee if they want their users to be able to post whatever they want."

I don't see the quandary. FB has managed to make themselves a defacto public space, they should not however be allowed to extort that position.

And yet the government extorts all similar public spaces

There's a bizarre trend I have seen in the past decades where "The Government" is being portrayed as the enemy — not as the construct we have created to represent the wishes and needs of the people and society. Corporations are portrayed as our saviors at best — or at worst, excused for doing whatever they need to to make their shareholders a return on their investments.

"not as the construct we have created to represent the wishes and needs of the people and society."

Does the government actually do that?

It should. And we should fix that.

I am sure that corporations are not much interested in serving the public good however.

In this case I hate to have to agree with Meta. The Canadian government created the problem with its flawed policies designed to prop up a dying business model.

Is it "dying business model" or the public good that the Canadian government are responding to?

Seems like the loss of local news has become more like a dying societal model.

You’re squarely on the side of protectionist government funded media here like the CBC, not local news

I'm on the side of journalism in general. Local journalism is my most favored, national my second. Both though are more important to me than an ad-selling corporation.

I know "protectionist" is a word that is supposed to have negative connotations. Maybe though I missed how the government is acting against the interests of the Canadian people.

If they are a public space, why are the government charging them for what the public do in that space?

I don't disagree with you, they aren't 'just' a private company. But through that optic the CA govts policy makes even less sense.

>>> If they are a public space, why are the government charging them for what the public do in that space?

I dunno, I was just stating the obvious, because someone had to do it. All sides should cut the crap and abuse (FB, Canada, news publishers).

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