Deefield-News.com-Deerfield Beach,Fl-In a week where my constitutional rights have been challenged and or violated,Freedom of The Press and Equal Protection Clause to start.Again I understand BSO deputies and other LEO are out and doing their jobs protecting us. A natural disaster and curfew do not suspend the Constitution LEO can not favor CNN,NBC ABC,CBS or Sun-Sentinel or any other form of media over another.My access or any other bloggers rights to go to the same places the others in the media have gone is not a joke or something to be made fun of.
Facebook posters can post news and share with their Facebook friends.Facebook in my opinion has been greedy in not allowing “Group Pages” that generate revenue in the millions for Facebook ,by not sharing this revenue with those publishers.That is a story for another day. Google on the other hand through their “Adsense” program,”gets it” and rewards any website that qualifies to post Google ad’s from Adwords on their websites and shares the advertising revenue .
Google also “gets it” with their Google News,and allowing small publishers of news, and bloggers an opportunity to get their stories seen by thousands or if it goes viral millions.Google News is a news aggregator that allows ,if you qualify small and large publishers of news to get seen.Most if not all members of the “News Media Alliance” have Google News participating websites and also monetize with Google Adsense aside form their directly sold ads.
Both Google News and Facebook have been working with their algorithms to eliminate “Fake News” a term used too often these days.
That said this story I just read from July in USA today that is disturbing on many levels. From- USA Today (See some of us actually do some homework and read and dig.)
How about giving my other Deerfield Beach based business UsedTires.com some coverage in your publications and TV stations about being victims of Anti-Trust laws from USTMA members, Goodyear, Bridgestone/Firestone and Michelin and Pirelli through their illegal lobbying and smear campaigns of used tire sellers.
Newspaper publishers, reeling from the digital ascendance of Facebook and Google, which ring up most of the world’s online advertising sales, want anti-trust exemption to better negotiate with their Internet rivals.
News Media Alliance is proposing the exemption to bargain collectively with the online platforms. The non-profit previously known as the Newspaper Association of America represents large publishers, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, as well as smaller, regional papers. Gannett, parent company of USA TODAY and more than 100 local media organizations across the country, is also a member.
“The objective is to permit publishers to have concrete discussions with the two dominant distributors of online news content, Google and Facebook, on business model solutions to secure the long-term availability of local journalism produced by America’s newsrooms,” News Media Alliance said in statement.
Antitrust laws are used to promote fair competition and avoid monopolies.
News Media Alliance President and CEO, David Chavern, wrote in an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal that Facebook and Google could be more harmful to the news industry than tweets from President Donald Trump, who regularly attacks the news industry as “fake.“
“The problem is that today’s internet distribution systems distort the flow of economic value derived from good reporting,” Chavern wrote. “But the two digital giants don’t employ reporters: They don’t dig through public records to uncover corruption, send correspondents into war zones, or attend last night’s game to get the highlights. They expect an economically squeezed news industry to do that costly work for them.”
Newspaper ad revenue is down from nearly $50 billion 10 years ago to $18 billion in 2016, according to a Pew reasearch center analysis. Facebook and Google control more than 53% of the digital ad market in the U.S., according to eMarketer. They’re estimated to control more than 80% of U.S. Internet advertising growth.
Chavern argued that if antitrust enforcers in the U.S. applied the existing laws to Facebook and Google, the laws the News Media Alliance are suggesting would be unnecessary. He pointed to Facebook’s acquisition of two major competitors, WhatsApp and Instagram and Google’s purchases in the online advertising business of Doubleclick, AdMob and AdMeld. Chavern notes that European regulators have begun to act by fining Google $2.7 billion for violations of fair competition.
One solution: U.S. anti-trust authorities should allow publishers to band together to create a “unified front,” he wrote.
“Gannett applauds the NMA’s efforts to draw attention to the impact the dominance of Google and Facebook is having on the news business,” said Barbara Wall, the company’s chief legal officer. “Providing a safe harbor for publishers to negotiate jointly with Google and Facebook would be an important first step in addressing the issue.”
Facebook and Google have acknowledged the pressures facing the news industry, rolling out programs to support local journalism. In Facebook’s case, it’s also tried to rebuff claims it is playing the role of a de facto news leader, while its staff and algorithms attempt to reduce hoaxes and fake news and violence on the site.
“We’re committed to helping quality journalism thrive on Facebook. We’re making progress through our work with news publishers and have more work to do,” said a statement from Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook.
Google did not respond to request for comment, but told the Los Angeles Times “We remain deeply committed to helping publishers with both their challenges, and their opportunities.”
So if Google and Facebook built a better mousetrap is that not what “Capitalism” is all about.
