Meta is blocking news links in Canada, as it did previously in Australia, following the introduction of new legislation. The...

Meta is blocking news links in Canada, as it did previously in Australia, following the introduction of new legislation. The…

  • scutiger@lemmy.worldEnglish
    218·
    1 year ago

    For all the stupid shit that Elon Musk has said and done over the years, at least his quote at the end of this article makes sense:

    This is bizarre. They want us to pay them for traffic to their site where they make advertising revenue and we don’t!?

    Back in the old days of the internet, you would have to pay the bigger sites to have them link back to your site. Now the government decides that it should be the other way around. It was a stupid law from the start, and now they’re finding out why.

    • Burstar@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      171·
      1 year ago

      It’s not a dumb law. Musk’s quote conveniently side-steps the truth. The way it was: Search/social media website provided pointless links to the news source while stealing the news and publishing it itself and earning all the ad revenue. Original news source: starved.

      The way the law should have worked (and will as soon as Meta and X’s greed corrects itself): Search/social media websites provide link to news provider and gains ad revenue as normal. News provider actually gets visits to read their news and also earns ad revenue.

      • WarmSoda@lemm.eeEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        It’s kinda interesting if you look back at the history of the Internet and see how ads and newspapers just completely shot themselves in the foot. Treating the Internet as the yellow pages was extremely shortsighted.

        I wonder what being online would look like if they had chosen a smart way to handle those things from the beginning.