Video: Australia’s “News Media Bargaining Code”

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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4 Responses

  1. LTL FTC says:

    Wow, this is like the upside down version of the American debate. (Insert Southern Hemisphere joke).

    The real joke is that social media ad revenue sharing in the US would also accrue to the sensationalist right wing News and not humble local investigative reporters.Report

  2. Brandon Berg says:

    This kerfuffle is a beautiful illustration of the old saying, “One man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens.”

    In formal logic, to assert that A implies B is to say that if A is true, B must be true. A modus ponens argument starts with the premises that A is true and A implies B, and concludes that B must be true. The canonical example is “All men are mortal; Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal.”

    A modus tollens argument starts with the premise that B is false and A implies B, so therefore A must be false as well. Going with the ancient Greek theme, we might say, “All men are mortal; Zeus is immortal, therefore Zeus is not a man.”

    The Australian government passed a law saying that if a social media site links to news articles, it must pay for the privilege. If link, then pay up. The Australian government expected modus ponens: Facebook links, therefore they must pay. To their shock and dismay, Facebook responded with a modus tollens: We don’t want to pay, therefore we must not link!Report