Facebook Inc (FB.O) on Tuesday said it would stop Australians sharing news content on its platforms if a proposal to make it pay local media outlets for their content becomes law, escalating tension with the Australian government.

Under Australia’s closely watched internet reform, the country will become the first to make the social media behemoth and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google pay for news sourced from local providers under a royalty-style system.

Facebook’s plan to block the sharing of news on Australian user accounts, rather than pay royalties, puts the firm broadly in step with Google on the matter and pushes the prospect of an agreement with the government further out of reach.

“Assuming this draft code becomes law, we will reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news on Facebook and Instagram,” Facebook Australia Managing Director Will Easton said in a blog post, referring to two Facebook-owned platforms.

“This is not our first choice - it is our last. It is the only way to protect against an outcome that defies logic and will hurt, not help, the long-term vibrancy of Australia’s news and media sector”.

Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Tuesday said the proposed law was in the national interest, followed 18 months of a public inquiry, and would create a more sustainable local media industry where the original content was paid for.

“We don’t respond to coercion or heavy-handed threats wherever they come from,” Frydenberg said in an emailed response to Reuters’ request for comment.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Chair Rod Sims, who is overseeing the proposed law, said Facebook’s response was “ill-timed and misconceived”, and that the proposal “simply aims to bring fairness and transparency to Facebook and Google’s relationships with Australian news media businesses”.

“As the ACCC and the Government work to finalize the draft legislation, we hope all parties will engage in constructive discussions,” Sims said in a statement.

Bridget Fair, chief executive of Free TV Australia, a lobby group for free-to-air broadcasters, said Facebook’s plan amounted to “bullying” and that the U.S. firm would “say and do anything to avoid making a fair payment for news content”.

“Australian Facebook users are being held to ransom as a tactic to intimidate the Australian government into backing down on this issue,” she said in a statement.

The proposed law was “the only reasonable way to even up the bargaining power between Facebook, Google, and Australian News Media Businesses,” Fair said.

Facebook’s Easton in his blog post called the proposed law “unprecedented in its reach”, and said the company could either remove news entirely or agree to pay publishers for as much content as they wanted at a price with no clear limits.

“Unfortunately, no business can operate that way,” he wrote.

Like in most countries, Australia’s traditional media companies in recent years have seen their mainstay advertising income streams eroded by online competitors, and consumers shy away from paid subscriptions.

Last month, Google began an advertising campaign using pop-up ads on its main search page that said its free service would be “at-risk” and users’ personal data could be shared if the firm is made to pay news organizations for their content. The ACCC called the statements “misinformation”.

Source: Reuters

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Social media platforms and messaging apps including Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Google and Twitter say they will deny law enforcement requests for user data in Hong Kong while studying ramifications of a national security law enacted last week.

Facebook and its messaging app WhatsApp said in separate statements Monday that they would freeze the review of government requests for user data in Hong Kong, “pending further assessment of the National Security Law, including formal human rights due diligence and consultations with international human rights experts.”

The policy changes follow the rollout last week of laws prohibiting what Beijing views as secessionist, subversive or terrorist activities, or as foreign intervention in the territory’s internal affairs. The legislation criminalizes some pro-democracy slogans like the widely used “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time,” which the Hong Kong government says has separatist connotations.

The fear is that the new law erodes the freedoms of the semi-autonomous city, which has operated under a “one country, two systems” framework after Britain handed the colony to China in 1997. That framework has allowed Hong Kong and its people freedoms not found in mainland China, such as unrestricted internet access.

Spokesman Mike Ravdonikas said Monday that Telegram understands “the importance of protecting the right to privacy of our Hong Kong users.” Telegram has been used broadly to spread pro-democracy messages and information about the protests in Hong Kong.

“Telegram has never shared any data with the Hong Kong authorities in the past and does not intend to process any data requests related to its Hong Kong users until an international consensus is reached in relation to the ongoing political changes in the city,” he said.

Twitter also paused all data and information requests from Hong Kong authorities after the law went into effect last week, the company said. It is studying the implications of the security law.

“Like many public interest organisations, civil society leaders and entities, and industry peers, we have grave concerns regarding both the developing process and the full intention of this law,” the company said in a statement.

Twitter emphasized that it was “committed to protecting the people using our service and their freedom of expression.”

Likewise, Google said in a statement that it too had “paused production on any new data requests from Hong Kong authorities” and will continue reviewing details of the new law.

Social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp have operated freely in Hong Kong, while they are blocked in the mainland by China’s “Great Firewall.”

Though social platforms have yet to be blocked in Hong Kong, users have begun scrubbing their accounts and deleting pro-democracy posts out of fear of retribution. That retreat has extended to the streets of Hong Kong as well.

Many of the shops and stores that publicly stood in solidarity with protesters have removed the pro-democracy sticky notes and artwork that adorned their walls.

Hong Kong’s government late Monday issued implementation rules of Article 43 of the national security law, which give the city’s police force sweeping powers in enforcing the legislation and come into effect Tuesday.

Under the rules, platforms, publishers and internet service providers may be ordered to take down any electronic message published that is “likely to constitute an offence endangering national security or is likely to cause the occurrence of an offence endangering national security.”

Service providers who do not comply with such requests could face fines of up to 100,000 Hong Kong dollars ($12,903) and receive jail terms of up to six months.

Individuals who post such messages may also be asked to remove the message, or face similar fines and a jail term of one year.

Critics see the security law as Beijing’s boldest step yet to erase the legal firewall between the former British colony and the mainland’s authoritarian Communist Party system.

After the law took effect on June 30, local authorities moved swiftly to implement its sweeping conditions, with police arresting about 370 people.

The implementation rules allow Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam to authorize police to intercept communications and conduct surveillance to “prevent and detect offences endangering national security.”

The sweeping new rules allow police to conduct searches for evidence without a warrant in “exceptional circumstances” and to seek warrants requiring a person suspected of violating the national security law to surrender their travel documents, thus restricting them from leaving Hong Kong.

Additionally, under the rules, written notices or restraining orders may be issued to freeze or confiscate property if there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect that the property is related to an offense endangering national security.

Facebook has launched its second TikTok clone, Reels, in over 50 countries through an integration with Instagram, the same method it used in 2016 to try to dethrone Snapchat.

Facebook’s systematic copycat strategy, which the markets have greeted with a 6% share price increase, is among the tactics the U.S. Congress’ antitrust subcommittee documented last week as potentially harmful to competition. Facebook tried four times to clone Snapchat, finally using Instagram as an umbrella and achieving its goal. This time, after failing with Lasso, it’s opted for direct integration with Instagram, a strategy that that has worked so well in the past.

This is precisely what antitrust legislation is supposed to prevent: competitors so powerful and with unlimited resources, that when faced with any initiative that could be considered as competition, they simply buy it or copy. With TikTok being fought on multiple fronts, competitors were bound to try to fill the gap with clones, but Facebook’s strategy is simply based on replicating a rival’s very successful product, and from a position of clear and undoubted leadership. If that’s not a case of predatory competition, then nothing is. 

Beyond the possible consequences of applying antitrust legislation to its activities, Facebook risks turning Instagram into a ragbag that is increasingly hard for users to navigate. What started out as a great app to improve your photos and publish them in a few clicks, now requires users to understand how to post photos and videos, convert them into a Story that is displayed for 24 hours and then disappears or moves into the background, link them to make a longer video, or now, make a Reel, which in turn has several additional possibilities lifted directly from TikTok. This complexity is likely to discourage people who are simply not comfortable with so many options.

There are limits to these kinds of umbrella strategies of bundling features into a successful product and Facebook could have reached them with Instagram. Next time you try to upload a simple photo and find that the app now offers you several more alternatives, some longer, some shorter, some ephemeral, some permanent and some a combination thereof: don’t worry, you haven’t suddenly turned into a technophobe. It’s what happens when an app that was originally simple and well-thought out becomes an umbrella used to cover all kinds of tools copied from others. It’s a strategy that may have worked in the past, but that has surely passed its sell-by date.

Source: Forbes
 

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Facebook appears to flipping the switch on integrating the chat systems for Instagram and Messenger. On Friday evening, several editors at The Verge across the country — on both iOS and Android devices — noticed an update screen popped up in Instagram’s mobile app with the message “There’s a New Way to Message on Instagram” with a list of features including a “new colorful look for your chats,” more emoji reactions, swipe-to-reply, and the big one: “chat with friends who use Facebook.”
Once you hit update, the regular DM icon in the top right of Instagram is replaced by the Facebook Messenger logo. Chats on Instagram are indeed more colorful than before, with the sender’s messages shifting between blue and purple as you scroll. However, at least for right now, it’s still not possible to message Facebook users from Instagram.
But Facebook has made clear its plans to unify the messaging platforms of its hugely popular apps to allow cross-messaging among Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Facebook was said to be rebuilding the underlying infrastructure so users who were on only one of its apps could connect to others using different Facebook apps. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also said he wants the system to be end-to-end encrypted. By integrating its most popular apps, Facebook may be able to compete more directly with Apple’s iMessage.
Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, and bought WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion. The company did not immediately reply to a request for comment Friday evening.
Sorce: theverge

 

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A new report claims that factors are increasingly pointing to Apple expanding Siri search results and Spotlight Searches even farther, with the company potentially working on a universal search engine.

Apple already has a search engine it uses for Spotlight Searches and Siri. However, if a new report is accurate, Apple may be looking to ditch the financial arrangement it has for Google to be the default on the iPhone, and launch its own full search engine.

The main tentpole to the argument made on Thursday morning by Jon Henshaw at Coywolf says that it isn't clear if Siri Suggestions are using Google at all anymore. Instead, Apple is returning search results with Spotlight Search, and is bypassing other search engines.

In AppleInsider's own brief tests on Thursday morning, some outgoing and return traffic to and from Google for Siri Suggestions in iOS 14 passed through our router. The same search terms in iOS 13 pulled nearly entirely from Google.

The report goes on to say that Apple is investing heavily on search, and pointing to job postings for search engineers. However, the number of available jobs in related fields has decreased in the last year, versus increased. This may be a factor of coronavirus limitations more than anything else, making a year-over-year comparison difficult.

An update to the "Applebot" web crawler page for web developers was made in June as well. Henshaw notes that the changes included how to verify traffic was actually coming from Applebot, and the company provided details about differences in the crawler between desktop- and mobile-centric searches. The update also made clear that the crawler renders ages similarly to Google, and a section about search rankings was amplified upon. At present, the information Apple has promulgated about the crawler is very similar, if not identical, to how Google scans pages.

Henshaw also notes that the AppleBot web crawler has been busy, with him noticing it just recently. A quick perusal of AppleInsider crawler traffic has shown no notable increase or decrease in Applebot crawler traffic since 2015, following a slow launch in the fall of 2014.

However, despite some evidence that suggests that there is not an increase in factors that suggest an imminent launch, a full Apple search engine available to all makes some sense. Henshaw says that Apple's engine would weaken Google's stranglehold on search, provide better promotion for Apple services, tighten Apple's control of the full hardware and software stack, and allow developers to promote apps in larger search results beyond just App Store searches.

A big factor against Apple developing its own full search engine include the loss of the billions of dollars per year that Google pays Apple for the privilege. Additionally, it may draw some additional antitrust attention from regulators if it does so, in a time where the investigations and testimony demands are at an all-time high.

Henshaw does note that the product may never come to market.

"At this point, everything is based on observation and conjecture. They may never release a search engine. It's also possible that iOS, iPadOS, and macOS users will be using it and not even be aware of it," writes Henshaw. "It could be so tightly integrated into the operating system and native apps that alerts and Spotlight Searches slowly steal away queries that would have otherwise been made on Google."

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