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Zuckerberg Doesn't Care About Publishers; Media Firms That Don't Work With Us Will End Up 'In Hospice': Facebook Executive (theguardian.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-Facebook-sees-itself dept.

Olivia Solon, writing for The Guardian: A senior Facebook executive told Australian media companies that if they didn't cooperate with the social network, their businesses would die. According to a report by The Australian, Campbell Brown, Facebook's head of news partnerships, told a group of more than 20 broadcasters and publishers that she wanted to help media companies develop sustainable business models through the platform. "We will help you revitalise journalism ... in a few years the reverse looks like I'll be holding your hands with your dying business like in a hospice," she said, in comments corroborated by five people who attended the meeting in Sydney on Tuesday.

The Australian also reported that Brown said that Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, "doesn't care about publishers but is giving me a lot of leeway and concessions to make these changes," although both Facebook and Brown vehemently deny this comment was made, referring to a transcript they have from the meeting. Facebook would not release the transcript from the meeting.

6 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Pride comes before the fall. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If such remarks don't indicate that Facebook is a cancer on humanity, I don't know what will !

  2. Not exactly vehemently by Aighearach · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They haven't even convinced me that they've denied saying it. It sounds more like they're arguing about the wording, or if the comment was intended to be anonymous.

  3. Gov't mandate may be needed by Spy+Handler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I like libertarian ideas as much as the next guy, but this seems to be one of those cases where gov't mandating open access may be needed.

    A comparable situation I believe was when then the gov't mandated that phone carriers allow customers to take their phone numbers with them when they switched to a different company. This was because consumers found it extremely difficult to switch while the greedy phone company was holding their phone number hostage. And I think it worked out well, it's one of those instances where a consumer protection law worked in the public interest.

    Facebook is evil and greedy and a detriment to the public good, I think most people will agree. It would be a good idea to develop open standards and protocols for social networks so that anyone on one social networking platform can exchange posts and info with people on any other social network. And pass a consumer protection law requiring that all social networks follow this rule. It would not be any more draconian or authoritarian than requiring all automobile manufacturers to comply with current (and arbitrary) crash safety and smog guidelines.

    1. Re:Gov't mandate may be needed by DogDude · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Facebook is nothing like the phone company. There are a ton of alternatives to Facebook (including no social media at all). Facebook is just an entertainment/data mining web site. It's not important.

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    2. Re:Gov't mandate may be needed by bobstreo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I ran a Chrome extension ("Social Book Post Manager") that used the FB Activity Log to uncomment, unpost, unlike everything I've ever done on FB. (I've downloaded all the data first.) I've made my FB account effectively stateless -- all that is left is my contact list without losing any of the benefits of FB.

      I'll admit I don't know what exactly that accomplishes but it feels like I have taken leverage away from FB. They can't hold me hostage through my data since it's gone. I don't care if I lose my account, I can recreate my contact list from a new account if I need to. The deleted data is probably not accessible to 3rd parties, and I will look for a way to autogenerate tons of posts that I'll delete in the same way. A script that uploads photos of generic faces and tags me in them, then deletes everything would be next.

      So maybe I can use the service without being the product. And if everyone does it and that kills the service -- good riddance.

      You're doing it wrong. You should be uploading TB of images and videos of unidentifiable road surfaces, strangers in the street, streams and floors. (with the EXIF data scrubbed.)

  4. Sherman Act by sdinfoserv · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If such comments don't indicate the need to evoke the Anti-monopoly Sherman Act against a strong arm bullying Corporation, then our legislators are bought and pwned by the Oligarchs. oops.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...