[HN Gopher] Google News Showcase Launches in Australia
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Google News Showcase Launches in Australia
Author : caution
Score : 22 points
Date : 2021-02-04 21:42 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.google)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.google)
| joecot wrote:
| So is this Google trying to navigate around Australia's proposed
| changes, or did Google blink and decide not to pull out?
| jb_s wrote:
| 50/50? I _think_ this first step is Google going "fuck you,
| we'll create our own curated news service and we'll pay a bunch
| of independent media on our own terms". But it's still probably
| just a matter of time until it's murdoch wall-to-wall
| jimmcslim wrote:
| I'm not sure of the details but apparently our Prime Minister,
| Scott Morrison, had a "fruitful discussion" with Google
| yesterday...
| dhsysusbsjsi wrote:
| The Australian PM is from a marketing background so there's a
| fair chance the deal changed so Australian tax payers are now
| paying Google to pay Murdoch media.
| firecall wrote:
| The whole thing is corrupt nonsense.
|
| Morrison has been in Murdochs pocket his entire career.
|
| It's shamless corruption that is damaging Australian
| Domocracy and our reputation.
| chrismsimpson wrote:
| Good thing google aren't evil
| kentosi wrote:
| If you're referring to Google's old motto "Don't be
| evil", then FYI that got dropped years ago:
| https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-
| of-do...
| fggg444 wrote:
| no one has a monopoly on being evil. both players can be
| wrong
| tamrix wrote:
| Do you have a source for this claim or is this just
| speculation?
| pulposus wrote:
| This is an interesting development in that the news services they
| have signed seem to be those not owned by Murdoch, i.e. left-
| leaning Fairfax and Schwartz Media mastheads. This could be about
| making sure the first people to make some money out of this are
| the competitors of those asking for it.
| siquick wrote:
| Fairfax is definitely not left leaning anymore, they're owned
| by Nine Entertainment which was strong ties to the Liberal
| government.
|
| "AUSTRALIA'S MEDIA is more concentrated than in some countries
| that are under dictatorships, such as Turkey and Russia. The
| ownership and management of practically all of Australia's
| print and television media, with exception to Network 10, have
| links to the Liberal Party. News Corp, chaired by Rupert
| Murdoch and majority-owned by the Murdoch family, owns around
| two-thirds of the print media and is a majority stakeholder in
| Foxtel and Sky News.
|
| Nine Entertainment, which was established by the Liberal-linked
| Packer family and is chaired by former Liberal member Peter
| Costello, owns the Nine Network, about a third of Australia's
| newspaper publications and subscription television service
| Stan. Seven West Media, which is majority-owned and chaired by
| Kerry Stokes, another Liberal supporter, owns Channel 7 and any
| major newspaper publications that are not owned by News Corp or
| the Nine Entertainment.
|
| Ita Buttrose, another person with links to the Liberal Party,
| is chairperson of the ABC. Although most of Australia's media
| is owned and run by Liberal supporters, there have been times
| when Australia's media wasn't biased."
|
| https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/t...
| mrcsharp wrote:
| This sounds like a way for google to control who gets publish
| news articles across their services where google will select the
| sources they like.
|
| So basically if google doesn't like your organization, you don't
| get a place on this platform. Of course, it is their platform so
| this is within their rights, but I don't feel comfortable with
| google getting to promote some news sources over others based on
| arbitrary criteria. This is problematic when considering the size
| of audience google can reach.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Australia is to blame for this whole saga.
|
| You can fault Google in a hundred other places, but this is
| 100% on Murdoch and the Australian gov for forcing Google into
| a corner where they could not display neutral results.
| valleyjo wrote:
| This is a great point. It's a conversation about the place
| these companies should hold in our lives, in democracy and
| their ability to control information. I wish people would admit
| that directly and focus on that discussion.
|
| Instead I see unproductive and backward conversations saying
| that google should pay publishers when in fact google brings
| more value to publishers via clicks than publishers bring to
| google. This line of thinking is missing the primary
| implications in my opinion.
| dang wrote:
| The recent-and-related threads on this (there are a lot of them)
| can be accessed via
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| shruubi wrote:
| It reads to me as though Google blinked. I'm sure somewhere,
| Rupert Murdoch is popping champagne bottles paid for by his ever
| increasing media in the Australian media bubble.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| I'm not seeing any Murdoch rags listed in the article though?
| abraae wrote:
| Google had to blink sooner or later. It would be a loss for
| them if they were blocked from the Aussie market and other
| alternatives like Bing, DDG became popular.
|
| That could lead to a dominoes scenario where other countries
| realised they could get by too without the mighty Google.
|
| Those of us that need Google for searching for weird code
| snippets and the like (though Google seems increasingly failing
| in the battle against SEO spam) could just use a US VPN. Most
| people would get by fine on DDG.
| kindofajsdev wrote:
| This is my take as well. Google will sooner run at a loss in
| certain countries if it means not giving other competitors so
| much as an inch. Ads are their kingdom. They will protect it
| at all costs, even if that is giving up some revenue.
|
| What I am waiting to see next is, how will other
| countries/industries respond? Some countries may institute
| the same thing as Australia. Other industries may try to take
| a cut as well.
| nojs wrote:
| Google's PR on this whole thing is a mess. There's no explanation
| of how this fits in to their previous ads and videos that
| threatened to pull search from Australia. And even that was badly
| explained. I wish they would pick a stance and clearly say what
| they mean.
| jb_s wrote:
| There's also no link to the bloody thing anywhere!
|
| Great launch.
| 22c wrote:
| Google threatening to pull search from Australia was the most
| obvious bluff I've ever seen from any company. A total
| embarrassment, everyone saw right through it.
| hiisukun wrote:
| So how do I (as an Aussie) use it, or see it?
|
| I couldn't find a link in the annoucement blog post. So I Googled
| for "Google News showcase" but.. no link there. Maybe I had to
| click the "news" tab/link above the search results- but nope,
| this just shows me the old style results, articles one after the
| other.
|
| Maybe it's an app? I searched the playstore, but only saw "Google
| news" which isn't updated since 15 Jan. I gave it a go anyway,
| but it didn't show the Showcase style anything like the blog
| post.
|
| Makes me think maybe this isn't really for the users.
| bjowen wrote:
| Meaning no shade, since this has probably been launched on a
| moment's notice, but the current list of publications isn't that
| impressive - none of the big names are there, half are subscriber
| paywalled, and the Conversation is a Creative Commons enterprise;
| I don't think their funding model relies on this kind of traffic.
|
| Listed are: The Canberra Times, The Illawarra Mercury, The
| Saturday Paper, Crikey, The New Daily, InDaily and The
| Conversation.
| [deleted]
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