Was the news industry broken by Facebook and Google, or was it broken by the lack of regulation? In my country, actual publishers are accountable for what they report, and as such, they tend to be better sources than what you'll find on platforms that aren't regulated. This is why you're not going to find anti-vax pseudo science in a Danish news paper, but you may find it among instagram influencers or in Facebook groups.
Which is the real issue. As long as we don't hold people with a public voice accountable for what they say, or regulate the platforms which allow those voices to reach billions, then we're going to be in trouble. Making Google or Facebook share some of what they earn with the news industry isn't going to change that.
And why wouldn't we hold instagram influencers to the same editorial standards that we did national news papers, when those influencers have more reach? Free speech simply doesn't work without responsibility, and neither does democracy.
It's completely insane that we now live in a world where we have to take science deniers seriously, and it's frankly going to ruin us. Because people aren't only spreading nonsense on social media to get rich, or because they like the attention, there are anti-democratic governments who are using our own unregulated platforms against us, in coordinated attempts to destroy western civilization.
So if you want to save the news industry, don't just make Google, Facebook and every other social media platform that hides behind their own users, pay up, make them responsible for the content that they allow onto their platforms exactly like we made the news industry responsible for what they print.
In photography they say the best camera you can own is the one you have on you when you want to take a picture. Most cameras these days are cell phones.
In software, the best software is one that was built and works to solve a problem, not necessarily one that is engineered perfectly.
Otherwise slack, chrome, etc... wouldn’t routinely eat up 1GB of ram just to open.
Which is the real issue. As long as we don't hold people with a public voice accountable for what they say, or regulate the platforms which allow those voices to reach billions, then we're going to be in trouble. Making Google or Facebook share some of what they earn with the news industry isn't going to change that.
And why wouldn't we hold instagram influencers to the same editorial standards that we did national news papers, when those influencers have more reach? Free speech simply doesn't work without responsibility, and neither does democracy.
It's completely insane that we now live in a world where we have to take science deniers seriously, and it's frankly going to ruin us. Because people aren't only spreading nonsense on social media to get rich, or because they like the attention, there are anti-democratic governments who are using our own unregulated platforms against us, in coordinated attempts to destroy western civilization.
So if you want to save the news industry, don't just make Google, Facebook and every other social media platform that hides behind their own users, pay up, make them responsible for the content that they allow onto their platforms exactly like we made the news industry responsible for what they print.