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Facebook Is Telling the World It's Not a Media Company, But It Might Be Too Late (businessinsider.com)

Posted by msmash on from the what's-Facebook? dept.

Let's get some facts straight. The vast majority of people now get their news from social media. Facebook has become one of the largest platforms for media companies. Not only does it send people to publications, it also offers outlets Instant Articles platform, essentially acting as a publisher. But when CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked on Monday if Facebook is a media company, he took some time thinking about it, and said "no." From a Business Insider article: Zuckerberg went on to explain how Facebook is a technology company that gives media companies tools and a platform, not a media company itself. This isn't the first time we've heard him spout a similar rhetoric recently, because it has been a particularly thorny year for Facebook and the news business. Zuckerberg maintains that it isn't a media company because it doesn't create content. Sure, Facebook isn't making journalism (what many people think of when they hear "media company") but it is hosting, distributing, and monetizing content just like a media company. And even what Zuckerberg said -- "When you think about a media company, you know, people are producing content, people are editing content, and that's not us" -- has been more or less true this year depending on how you define producing and editing.

47 comments

  1. Cop out! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He actually loves the fact that everyone gets there news from FB

  2. TPW;DR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "A similar rhetoric"? "Making journalism"?
    Too poorly worded; didn't read

    1. Re: TPW;DR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let me summarise, Mark Zuckerberg farted on about something, some bullshit news outlet interpreted his jibber into a news piece peddled by whatever political bias the outlet has.

      Regardless of what Mark Z harped on about is meaningless because he can change is point of view or perspective without regard, penality or even coherence. The same news outlet will probably defend him in the future anyway even if he did have his words twisted by them in the first place. Because they too print perspectives and views without regard, penality or coherence and they are just like our friend Mark Z never held accountable.

  3. "News" from social media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yeah... "news"... like repostings and sharing of stupid political memes. And other important information like Bekki was fucking Jennifer's guy. Oh and kids with cancer... don't forget to share the picture of chemo-boy, otherwise you'll have bad luck for 10 years (the caption says so - it must be true). And high angle shots of some 14 year olds tits to make them look bigger than they really are.

    There's the NEWS of the future for you.

    1. Re: "News" from social media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget the cat videos.

    2. Re:"News" from social media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've seen the future!

      And it is dumb... :(

    3. Re:"News" from social media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget the high angle shots of obese 34yo women to make their fat faces look slimmer...sorta.

  4. Re:So what kind of company is it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slashdot FBI?

  5. Okay by willoughby · · Score: 1

    You seem pretty insistent on jamming Facebook into that slot. Okay, fine, Facebook is a "media company", whatever that means to you. So... now what?

    1. Re:Okay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Presumably an actual "media" company would spend at least some of its earnings on journalism - reporters, investigators, editors... that sort of thing - rather than just repackaging all of its content from elsewhere. Which, unless I'm mistaken, Facebook does not do. So yeah, I'm with Zuckerberg on this one - Facebook is not a media company.

    2. Re:Okay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They do hire people to investigate and edit comments that aren't appropriate (from their view). The current media also does very little journalism and is more keen on getting views ("likes") even if they need to twist the truth a little (lie about news).

    3. Re:Okay by i.r.id10t · · Score: 1

      Is slashdot and the corporate overlord of the year a "media company" ? Sure, most of the slashvertisements point to other "news" sites, but there is also the ask slashdot, the ability to post from a journal, etc. Is that just providing a platform to us plebes to comment on "news" "articles" with a nifty rating system that gives us some sort of social gratification?

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
  6. TBH Zuck's point makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It does seem like its more of a platform for media than a media company itself, they don't produce content they just deliver it.

    1. Re: TBH Zuck's point makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Precisely. They take content created by real media companies and deliver it to hapless millenials and their grandparents. Then they get paid by an advertiser to annoy you and take your personal information.

      If Facebook weren't such a big "thing," they'd be sued out of existence by real media companies. I'm. It really sipper why that hasn't happened yet. The music industry is all angry about YouTube... why should media be angry at Facebook by stealing all their content by not paying THEIR advertisers.

      Honestly, they can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned.

  7. Want the upsides but not the downsides by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Next we'll hear Microsoft say, "We are not a malware conduit company!"

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  8. "social MEDIA" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, media isn't media, if it's "social"? Seriously. The company's description is two words, and one of them is media". It's a media company.

  9. Yes, I read about this story by penguinoid · · Score: 1

    on Facebook.

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  10. Re:So what kind of company is it? by Yvan256 · · Score: 1

    You mean a Google division?

  11. Correction by Greyfox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That headline should read "Media Company Facebook is Telling The World that it's not a Media Company".

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    1. Re:Correction by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      That headline should read "Media Company Facebook is Telling The World that it's not a Media Company".

      If Facebook is a media company first and foremost, then Slashdot is journalism.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re: Correction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really, but Slashdot is a social media site as is Facebook. The mechanisms here are clunky and dated but they do exist. I am unable to log in but I do have an account here. Well, I could log in but it might cause me some problems. So, I am well aware of the feature set here and, further, I have met a goodly number of users in real life.

    3. Re:Correction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Journalism these days is copy-pasting badly other websites. So, yes.

    4. Re: Correction by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Not really, but Slashdot is a social media site as is Facebook.

      Yes, yes they are, and I agree with you on both points. But that still doesn't make Facebook a media company. They provide the platform that others use to deliver media. They're a social networking company.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Correction by EndlessNameless · · Score: 1

      Not really.

      Traditionally, media companies have created intellectual or artistic content. Films, television, newspapers, music. Facebook, as a company, creates none of these things.

      Facebook is a conduit for its users' content. In that respect, it is more like a sewage system---it simply transports material created by one party to another party.

      I could have made a comparison to cable companies vs television stations, but those lines are blurred now that half of them own the other half. Plus the sewage comparison just felt right somehow.

      --

      ---
      According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
  12. Confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm a little confused, why does it matter if Facebook is called a media company or not?

    Oh No! Facebook is a MEDIA COMPANY!
    Oh Yes! Facebook is a MEDIA COMPANY!
    Oh No! Facebook isn't a MEDIA COMPANY!
    Oh Yes! Facebook isn't a MEDIA COMPANY!

    Yeah, none of those do it for me.

  13. Re: So what kind of company is it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's a New Super Awesome company.
    Now upload more pictures and details of your sex lives, peasants.

  14. "Vast Majority"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The summary claims that a "vast majority of people get their news from social media", but to back it up links a study that says less than half of people surveyed would say that they "sometimes" or "often" see news on social media platforms, and there's no mention of people getting news EXCLUSIVELY from social media, which is what the phrase "get their news" is meant to imply. This summary has moved from "potentially unintentional misrepresentation" to "outright lie".

    1. Re:"Vast Majority"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that statement was preceded by "let's get some facts straight", which is newspeak for "the following isn't true, but let's pretend it is".

    2. Re:"Vast Majority"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A lot of people get their news from kiosks selling newspapers. That don't mean the kiosk (or the complete franchise system of a kiosk corporation) is a media company. They just shift a lot of papers & magazines, they don't write anything in them. Perhaps they refuse to sell 'dirty' magazines, and toss out those that cross some line. That doesn't make them editors, still not a "media" company.

      Facebook is much of the same, but using networked computers instead of kiosks. People and companies push their stuff to facebook, other people get their reading material from the "facebook kiosk". Facebook just sit there, collecting revenue and tossing out the occational porn. They are certainly not editors - they won't refuse a page in lousy english or demand more research before you publish your 'article' on conspiracy theories.

  15. Half true. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

    Facebook does not create media, especially news.

    But Facebook has a lot of influence over which stories become global news that all people are aware of, and which remain forgotten in the back pages of a local paper. That's a great deal of power to be in the hands of just one company.

    1. Re:Half true. by BurfCurse · · Score: 1

      And that's different than a search engine how? So its not the only company that has that power.

    2. Re:Half true. by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      And take a look at a newspaper now. Most of the articles come off a newswire service. Many papers don't create a lot of their own content. The exceptions are the very large papers or the smaller papers that focus on local events.

    3. Re:Half true. by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Facebook as with all other social media fads has a real shelf life and the company is basically a well organised inside investor scam. Basically pump up the value of Facebook shares well beyond what the revenue justifies and use those shares to buy in real money making ventures (basically buying in revenue to justify the share price to buy in more revenue, this gives the illusion of increasing revenues, until boom, the insiders sell, the company collapses and all those sources of actual revenue get sold off).

      Lets be honest, Facebook has bugger all real influence beyond the easily influenced and they most do it to themselves, under direction of pay to play advertisers, well at least that is what Facebook sells. It is becoming quite 'uncool' to be on Facebook, more like being on sheepbook, rather than a human social media channel.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    4. Re:Half true. by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      Facebook has revenue that exceeds expenses. We usually call those profits. In what way is it a scam?

    5. Re:Half true. by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      It runs for quite a while. Basically to keep share price well beyond realistic price profit ratio, all sorts of weird crap happens in corporate accounting. So for example buying in revenue to increase revenue with the pretence of future higher profits, collapses when debt becomes to high, no higher profits ever occur (often impossible as they paid too much for the companies they buy) and eventually the share price drops to realistic levels, problem is the debt is way too high for that price and everyone gets worried and boom, it all collapses (the financial institutions are the ones that profit playing in the background like the true psychopaths they are).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  16. Facebook? Haven't used it in 5 years... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't miss it either. I don't know if its changed since 5 years ago but the vast majority seemed to be 30 something women posting pictures of their family and pinit items they wished to purchase.

  17. Then why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    did I have to dismiss a card within Google Now by clicking on "Don't show stories from Facebook Publishing" if they aren't a media company? (Should of taken a screenshot, damnit)

  18. I don't care by blackfeltfedora · · Score: 1

    I don't care what kind of company Facebook says it is, I just want some context for why 10K people are talking about McChicken without having to click a link.

  19. The problem with calling them media company by zedaroca · · Score: 1

    Is that people will start to expect the censorship, instead of complain about it. As if they are responsible for what people are saying in their platform, and that what we see on it are "the face of the company".

    1. Re:The problem with calling them media company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or 'copyright infringing material!'

      Who on earth is trying to get them classified as a media company? The MPAA and RIAA? Because everyone else either [a] thinks they're not, or more likely [b] really don't care and consider it "Facebook".

  20. rofl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and no fucks were given on that day. srsly who the fuck cares about facebook... ok nsa and fbi do lol...

  21. Fakebook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fakebook is EVIL! Fakebook MUST DIE!!!

  22. There's a word for that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Companies that distribute content without generating it are called "publishers".

    That's not a new concept. What's the big deal here?

  23. Re: So what kind of company is it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Now upload more pictures and details of your sex lives, peasants.

    *crickets*

    this is slashdot, after all.

  24. Reminds me of Yahoo. by Rexdude · · Score: 1

    They had the same confusion over being a media vs. a tech company. Though with the way FB has been trying to promote their own political agenda, they most definitely aren't behaving like a pure tech company that's only focused on their platform.

    --
    "..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
  25. Sorry Markie! You're a media company. by Chas · · Score: 1

    You have exactly ONE product with any real brand recognition, and its a social media platform. Everything else either hangs off that product or is a media project you've bought (like Occulus).

    You can think of your company however you want. You're rich enough to mostly ignore reality all you want.
    It doesn't actually CHANGE reality however.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!